Rohit Sharma was reluctant to lead India in Tests after Virat Kohli: Sourav Ganguly

Former India skipper and BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) President Sourav Ganguly has revealed that Rohit Sharma was reluctant to lead India in Test cricket after Virat Kohli relinquished the prestigious role. Ganguly said that Rohit had to be convinced by the board.

In a recent interview, Ganguly said that the board wanted Kohli to continue at the helm. However, the latter had already made up his mind to step down. The former cricketer said that Rohit was already leading India in white-ball cricket, and he convinced him to take up the role in the longest format of the game.

“We always wanted Virat to be captain, but he did not want to continue. And that's what it was. And then obviously Rohit came in, he was captaining Mumbai Indians. He was captaining 50-over T20. We needed a test captain because Virat Kohli was Test captain by then and he finished in South Africa. I always believed that Rohit was a very good captain. So obviously the request from the board, I went to him that you know you should captain in test matches. He was reluctant because of workload,” Ganguly told PTI.

“But then I remember having a conversation with him that, you don't want to finish your career without captaining Indian test matches. So that struck a chord with him, and then he took a couple of days and then he agreed. He's a very adjustable person, very friendly person, if you have conversations with him, he'll agree and accept and do things. And why wouldn't anybody want to be in this test game?,” he added.

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Rohit captained India in 24 Tests, winning 12, losing nine, and drawing three. He took India to the finals of the World Test Championship (WTC) in 2023. Last month, the 37-year-old bid adieu to the red-ball format, after playing 67 Tests, scoring 4301 runs at an average of 40.58, with 18 fifties and 12 tons to his name.