Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli recently called time on their career in tests.
Former Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting believes that it will be hard for the Indian Cricket Team to replace Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in tests. But he was quick to admit that with lots of talent in the country, India can quickly fill the void left by two greats.
The Indian Cricket Team will be taking on England in the five-match test series. This will mark the beginning of a new era for the Indian team as two legends of the game in Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, recently called time on their career in tests. Hence, it will be a relatively young side that will take charge now.
Shubman Gill will be captaining India in the tests, and one of the biggest challenges for him will be to fill the void left by Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. The duo did the bulk of the scoring for the team for more than one decade, and replacing them will be a very difficult task. Not only the runs but the team will also lack experience.
Ricky Ponting talked about the same and admitted that replacing Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli will be hard. But he feels that if any country can fill the void for big players quickly, it will be India. He cited examples of Yashasvi Jaiswal, saying that India keeps producing quality players. Speaking to the ICC, he said:
“It’s always very hard to replace players like that that have been around for so long that have played that much Test cricket. But if any country can do it and do it quickly, India can because of the amount of young talent that they have,” Ponting noted.
“I’ve seen it first hand for 10 years now around the IPL and we’ve seen the emergence of Jaiswal and these sort of guys that have come into international cricket with India and done really well pretty much straight away.“
I think India can cope with it better than most other teams – Ricky Ponting
Ricky Ponting also added that although India can replace the skillset, they will miss the experience of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. He added:
“The skill side of it’s one thing to replace and I think India will replace the skill side of it easily enough, but the experience is the big thing that’s going to be missing for them. So now even with a young captain with Shubman Gill, they’ll still have some experience around with KL, Rahul and Bumrah and these sort of guys. But I think if you look at a rebuilding sort of phase, I think India can cope with it better than most other teams.”
The first test between England and India will be played at the Headingley in Leeds on 20th June. The series will also begin the new edition of the ICC World Test Championship (2025-27).
For more updates, follow Khel Now Cricket on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube; download the Khel Now Android App or IOS App and join our community on Whatsapp & Telegram.
