Sunil Gavaskar disagrees with Gautam Gambhir's defence of Rohit Sharma's 'impact' in Champions Trophy 2025

Former India legend Sunil Gavaskar beseeched skipper Rohit Sharma to dig deep and bat for longer periods while curbing down his aggressive intensity in his batting to some extent. Notably, Sharma is known for his fearless batting approach and takes risks against even the best bowlers, especially in the powerplay phases in the ODIs.

For the unversed, recently, the Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir discussed the intent of the leader and came out in full support of the 'hitman'. He chided critics of the Mumbai-based batter after the Men in Blue stormed into the final of the Champions Trophy 2025. In a recent press interaction, Gambhir made it amply clear that the team does not consider statistics of the players in assessing their performance. Rather as a coach he prefers the 'impact' of a player. Hence when it came to the captain, he gave credit to him for being brave enough in trying to give India flying starts at the top of the batting order.

However, Gavaskar believed that Rohit Sharma should reconsider his batting approach as had has the ability to take apart the opposition and be the match-winner for the team, should he bat for at least 20-25 overs in the 50-over format. The 41-year-old so far has scored 104 runs with the strike rate being over 100 in the ongoing edition of the Champions Trophy. But the Indian captain has failed to play big knocks until now. But there is no denying that his approach has helped the middle order to express themselves and play more freely.

For the uninitiated, Sharma adopted the aggressive batting format during the ODI World Cup 2023 which was hosted in India. Even though the Men in Blue failed to bask in the title glory, the skipper continued his approach in the T20 World Cup, last year. Eventually, it brought fruitful results in favour of Team India as they finally lifted their second World Cup title in the T20I format.

"This is an approach he has been following for the last two years or so. It started around the World Cup in India, and he has been sticking to that formula. He has had some success, though perhaps not as much as his talent should warrant. He is an incredibly talented player with a range of shots that not many others in the game possess," Gavaskar was quoted as saying by India Today.

"Therefore, from an aesthetic point of view, from a crowd-pleasing perspective- I am not speaking from the team's point of view- if he bats for even 25 overs, India will be around 180-200. Imagine if they have lost only a couple of wickets by then; just think what they could do-they could reach 350 or more," the former India batting legend continued.

'Are you happy with scoring 25-30 runs?' - Gavaskar questions Rohit's batting intent

Sunil Gavaskar further suggested that a slight change in batting approach can help Rohit Sharma and co. to take the game away from the opponent. Hence batting for a longer time will have an even greater impact on the team. Moreover, he also said that Rohit Sharma should not be content with just scoring 25-30 runs.

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"He also needs to give it some thought. It's one thing to go out and play aggressively, but there has to be a bit of discretion somewhere to give himself the chance to bat for 25-30 overs. If he does that, he takes the game away from the opposition. That kind of impact is match-winning. And I think, as a batter, are you happy with scoring 25-30 runs? You shouldn't be! So that is what I would say to him: your impact on the team will be even greater if you bat for 25 overs instead of just seven, eight, or nine overs," Gavaskar concluded.