“Rohit Sharma retirement” calls have taken centre stage as knee-jerk reactions by the ever-emotional fans of the Indian cricket team. The same has come as a consequence of India losing their second consecutive ICC World Test Championship final.
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In a bid to score the remaining 280 runs to chase down a mammoth 444-run target handed by Australia, India went down like ninepins by the end of morning session on Day 5 of the ‘Ultimate Test’ to lose the encounter by 209 runs.
After having now failed for the eighth time in the past decade to clinch an ICC event title despite entering the knockout stage, to expect the frustrated fans to be a sport is perhaps too much to ask for. In this day and age of social media, all its keyboard warriors usually look for is a scapegoat post an entire team’s loss.
Along expected lines, it is the two most biggest names in the side, Sharma and his predecessor Virat Kohli, who are currently at the receiving end of unwarranted comments from fans (trolls in most cases).
While Kohli is being trolled in the most creative ways possible, angry fans are demanding Sharma’s retirement from Test cricket and consequently from the captaincy duty.
Angry Indian Fans Demand Rohit Sharma Retirement From Test Cricket
When impulsive reactions as such arrive from a veteran journalist’s end, then the commoners are expected to follow suit. Samip Rajguru, who has been part of Indian sports broadcast for quite a few media outlets and channels till date, has also demanded for Sharma to retire from Test cricket with immediate effect.
Simply looking at his numbers in the format in the past four years or so, the Indian captain has been one of their better batters. Across 38 Test innings from 2019-2023, the 36-year-old has scored 1,852 runs at an average of 51.44 with the help of six centuries and four half-centuries.
Such comments from a prominent journalist without a look at basic numbers is nothing but childish to say the least. As a result, or otherwise, it would certainly be naive to expect the fans to react a bit sensibly, as aplenty of them came up with calls of retirement as well.
Rohit Sharma Captaincy Record in Test Cricket
A majority of fans who are demanding Sharma’s resignation from Test captaincy are the ones who were the first in the line to hail his appointment last year in place of Kohli.
Funnily, the so-called fans have lost their patience in him after a mere seven Test matches at the helm. Across these Tests, the 36-year old player has led India to win in four matches, lost two, while one of them ended in a draw.
