Indian Cricket Team / Rohit-Virat-Jadeja retire, this will be the way forward for Team India

Indian Cricket Team: The whole math of cricket is about timing. We have enjoyed the timing of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma's batting for years. Jadeja used to show amazing timing even while diving for fielding. The better the timing, the bigger the player. In the world of sports, there is another game of timing going on. This second game is the timing of retirement. Amidst millions of cricket fans, the glittering world of advertising, lots of glamour, how should a player decide when to retire?

There is a saying about this timing. The Hindi translation of which is something like this that you should retire when people ask you - why now, you should not retire when people ask you why not yet? Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja kept this timing in mind. On one hand they embraced the victory and on the other they announced - now we say goodbye to the T20 format. Virat started, Rohit followed him and then came Ravindra Jadeja. Before we proceed with the story, understand the story of these three as well. The story is the story of dreams. Which was fulfilled in a very spectacular way.

The story of the fulfillment of a dream before retirement

First of all, let's talk about Rohit Sharma - Rohit Sharma had lost the finals of the ICC World Test Championship and the ODI World Cup as a captain. He had to win an ICC trophy as a captain. His dream was fulfilled. Rohit knows that he is not in the race of 100 centuries. As of today, he has 48 international centuries to his credit. Now after this, whether he scores 50 centuries or 55. The big thing is that he has drawn a big line. Now he is in the category of Kapil Dev and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. When India won the T20 World Cup in 2007, Rohit was a new player, this time he was the captain.

Virat Kohli's story is also interesting. He was part of the team that won the 2011 ODI World Cup, but then Virat Kohli was Team India's Cheeku. Cheeku is Virat's nickname. After 2011, in his career, he changed from Chiku to The Great Virat Kohli, but this difference was not visible in terms of titles. Now after becoming The Great Virat Kohli, he has another World Cup trophy. The big thing is that this time he is also the hero of the title win. No one makes the mistake of taking Jadeja lightly. This player had a treasure of experience. He was just waiting for a World Cup trophy. That wait is also over now.

The story of the hero who prepared an alternative

Now let's come to part-two of this story. Now Rohit, Virat, Jadeja are gone...the big question is whether the Indian team has an alternative for them. The answer to this question is - yes. And the credit for this 'yes' goes to Rahul Dravid. We will talk about him later, but for now let's talk about the alternative. First let's talk about the captaincy option in the T20 format. Here three names can be taken very strongly. These three names are - Hardik Pandya, Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav.

Don't forget that when Rohit Sharma was away from the T20 format for about a year, Hardik Pandya was captaining the team. Bumrah can also be considered for this role, but Bumrah too may not be seen in the T20 format for very long. His priority is now slowly shifting towards Test cricket. Now let's come to the options in batting. Rahul Dravid has worked so hard that there is nothing to worry about here as well. Let us tell you all the options one by one. The first name is - Yashasvi Jaiswal. Yashasvi has played a total of 98 T20 matches so far. This also includes matches played in the IPL. In these 98 matches, he has scored 2757 runs at a strike rate of 148.86.

Three options in the top order

After the departure of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in the top order, the next three options are - Shubman Gill, Rituraj Gaikwad and Abhishek Sharma. If the name of Abhishek Sharma seems new to you, then let us tell you that this is the same Abhishek who created a storm on the field for Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2024. He has also been selected in Team India for the tour of Zimbabwe.

Now look at the statistics of these three options. Shubman Gill has scored 4228 runs in 138 T20 matches. His strike rate is 137.18. He has scored 24 half-centuries in this format. 129 runs is the best innings of his T20 career. Rituraj Gaikwad has scored 4618 runs in 136 matches so far. He has 31 half-centuries to his credit. Gaikwad has batted at a strike rate of 139.18. Abhishek Sharma has scored 2671 runs in 104 T20 matches. His strike rate is 153.59 and he has 16 half-centuries to his credit.

When Sachin, Dravid and Ganguly took a big decision

Finally, let's talk about two more important things about this entire incident. Perhaps it has never happened in Indian cricket history that three big players have retired after a single match. But don't worry. Let us go through the history of this T20 World Cup. The first page of this history opens in 2007 when the T20 World Cup was played for the first time. Remember, just before that World Cup, it was decided that Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid will not be a part of the T20 team. These three had decided that this format is for young players and only youngsters should be allowed to play it.

After this, the youth created history under the leadership of Dhoni. That is, Indian cricket will not get another Rohit, another Virat or Jadeja, but the options we just talked about are also big star players of the coming times.

Rahul Dravid's big contribution

Now let's talk about Rahul Dravid. The contribution that Rahul Dravid is giving to Indian cricket, its value will be understood for the next many years. Today, if there is talk of an alternative to players like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in Indian cricket, then its hero is Rahul Dravid. The hard work he did first with the NCA and then with the Under-19 team will be rewarded for many more years to come. When Rahul Dravid announced his retirement, he did not get the opportunity to take this decision from the field. God gave him this opportunity as a coach. When on 29 June 2024, everyone was patting his back. Finally, let us also tell you that no one can prove this. But those who understand Rohit and Virat say that the decision to retire was taken on the same day when on 19 November 2023, despite the defeat in the ODI World Cup, Rohit Sharma was ready to take charge of the team again in the T20 World Cup. The only condition was that Virat Kohli should also be with him.