Shoaib Akhtar backs Virat Kohli as Team India’s captain; doesn’t want Rohit Sharma to replace him

Over the past few days, there have been question marks surrounding Virat Kohli’s qualities as the skipper of the Indian team. Though India has won a number of bilateral series under his leadership, the national team hasn’t won tournaments, organized by the ICC. Kohli’s men have made it through to the knockouts on a number of instances but couldn’t get their hands on the trophies.

Consequently, talks of him not being able to meet the required expectancy have come to the fore. The Delhi-born cricketer recently led in the 2019 edition of the World Cup in England and Wales. India finished the league stage on top of the points table with as many as seven victories. However, Kohli and Co lost the semi-final at the hands of New Zealand by 18 runs at the Old Trafford.

Virat could only manage one run and his side bowed out of the tournament, giving the Black Caps successive entries into a World Cup final after 2015. Recently, reports suggested that the strategy of ‘split captaincy’ could be applied. However, Kohli was persisted with as the skipper for the upcoming tour of the West Indies, which gets underway on August 3 with the T20I series.

Shoaib Akhtar in favor of Virat Kohli

In the meantime, Shoaib Akhtar, the former Pakistan cricketer, had a piece of opinion about Kohli’s leadership prowess at the highest level. The Rawalpindi Express conducted a Question and Answer session on Twitter where a number of fans got their doubts cleared over certain issues.

One of them asked whether Rohit Sharma, the limited-overs vice-captain, should be made India’s captain. The supporter took to Twitter and wrote, “Will Rohit Sharma replace Kohli as captain of India?? #AskShoaibAkhtar,”

Here is the fan tweet

Will Rohit Sharma replace Kohli as captain of India?? #AskShoaibAkhtar

— Dr. Aqeel Raja (@DrAqeelRaja) July 29, 2019

Shoaib didn’t have any trouble whatsoever in answering the question. He replied in favor of Kohli and said that as of now Rohit shouldn’t replace Virat as the skipper of the Men in Blue. He wrote, “Not required.”

Here is Akhtar’s reply

Not required

— Shoaib Akhtar (@shoaib100mph) July 29, 2019

But Akhtar had words of praises for Rohit as well. On being asked the best thing about the Nagpur-born batter, Shoaib said that he is excellent at taking responsibilities. The same can be comprehended from the number of centuries (five) he amassed in the World Cup, opening the batting.