Why was Rohit Sharma removed from ODI captaincy? Ajit Agarkar explains

Marking the start of a new era in Indian cricket, Shubman Gill will replace Rohit Sharma as the ODI captain when the team travels to Australia for the three-match series later this month.

Over the last few months, there were speculations about whether the national selection committee would continue with Rohit as the captain in ODIs, especially after he decided to move on from Tests. On Saturday, Ajit Agarkar, the chairman of the national selection panel, justified the decision to move on from the veteran captain, saying that “it’s impossible to have three different captains in three formats.”

While he confirmed that Rohit was informed about the decision, Agarkar wasn’t willing to jump the gun in terms of whether him and Virat Kohli would continue till the ODI World Cup in 2027, to be held in South Africa. “As far as the 2027 World Cup is concerned, I don’t think we need to talk about it today,” he said.

The 26-year-old Gill was named India’s Test captain in May, and he went on to lead the team in the five-Test series against England, where the team earned a 2-2 draw. Before the leadership baton was passed to him in both formats, Gill had only led once, during India’s tour of Zimbabwe in 2024 for five T20Is. But that was a stop-gap role as several senior players were rested.

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Agarkar clarified that Gill was given the ODI captaincy to streamline the things. “Obviously, at some stage, you have to start looking at where the next World Cup is. It’s also a format which is played the least now. So, you don’t get that many games to actually give the next guy or if there is going to be another guy that much time to prepare himself a plan,” Agarkar said.

“The World Cup is still two years away. That might look like a long time, but we don’t quite know how many One-Day games we might play closer to the World Cup. We might end up playing a little bit more than what we have. The last ODI we played was in March during the Champions Trophy and the next one we play is on October 19. So, it is a bit of a challenge with One-day cricket at the moment,” he said, adding that even though the T20 World Cup is next year, planning for the ODI World Cup would also start slowly.

“That’s the plan. It gives the next guy enough time to plan with whatever games that we have,” Agarkar said, reiterating that it would be difficult for selectors, and coaches as well to plan with three different captains.

Playing all three formats means there’s very little turnaround time for Gill. However, Agarkar isn’t willing to think too much about it. “He is still quite young. We saw what he did in England under immense pressure. So, there were really positive signs there. You have seen his record in ODI cricket as a batter, and we hope there’s no burnout,” he said.

“It is true there’s a lot of cricket coming thick and fast over the next few months in particular, but as the team management, we try and manage it as best as we can. But you would also like to give the guy enough time to try and prepare going into that World Cup, which is 24 months away.”

In the 55 ODIs that he has featured in so far, Gill has scored 2775 runs, with eight centuries. The selectors as well the team management would hope that he continues to shine bright across formats.

The 15-man ODI squad includes KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel in the batting department, while Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar and Axar Patel are the all-rounders.

Read | India-squad for Australia ODI series: Full list of players

While Jasprit Bumrah has been rested, Mohammad Siraj, Arshdeep Singh and Prasidh Krishna are the frontline bowlers, along with Harshit Rana and Kuldeep Yadav as the left-arm wrist spinner.

From the Champions Trophy squad, Ravindra Jadeja has not been included in the squad, while Hardik Pandya and Rishabh Pant are nursing their injuries. Pandya, who had missed the final of the Asia Cup after walking off the ground in the Super Fours game against Sri Lanka, will take a bit more time to recover and will miss out on the T20I series as well.

The ODIs are scheduled for October 19 (Perth), October 23 (Adelaide), and October 25 (Sydney), followed by a five-match T20I series from October 29 to November 8.

Published on Oct 04, 2025