Virat Kohli vs Rohit Sharma: Indian cricket and BCCI can soon find themselves in a difficult situation with increasing debates around the captaincy of the national side that has left the fans divided. While Virat has done a decent job with the national side, he is yet to win a major ICC tournament. On the other hand, Rohit has recently guided his franchise Mumbai Indians (MI) to their fifth title in the just-concluded 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2020). 

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Many cricket pundits and former players are coming up with their views on the working of split-captaincy in India. While detailing their opinions on the same topic, former Indian opening batsmen Gautam Gambhir and Aakash Chopra got into a heated argument. 

Speaking on the Star Sports Show, Cricket Connected, Gambhir underline the fact that while Kohli is not a bad captain, Rohit is better. He got in a heated exchange of words with former Indian opener Aakash Chopra who believes that this isn’t the right time to switch captaincy as the T20 World Cup is next year and India will hardly get to play just 5-6 games before that.  

“When we pick the players for international cricket looking at their IPL form, then why can’t we pick the captaincy of the Indian team from IPL too. If we can’t pick captaincy, then IPL should not be a parameter for batting or bowling performances. The selection of T Natarajan, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav in the Indian team is also wrong as they were picked from IPL only,” Gambhir said. 

Meanwhile, Chopra said that there is nothing wrong if a player who performs in international circuit, can’t replicate the same in IPL. 

“IPL is there. But the performance of international pedigree will be considered as the performance of international pedigree only and IPL will be seen in isolation. There is no problem if certain players who have done well for India, don’t perform in IPL. Virat Kohli as an Indian captain has done absolutely right in T20 cricket,” he said. 

Parthiv Patel, on the other hand agreed with Gambhir and said that Rohit is a better captain than Kohli. 

“Who takes a better decision, who reads the game better, who makes a better decision in a pressure situation to make the team win – in these things Rohit Sharma as a captain is slightly better than Virat Kohli,” Parthiv said. 

Interestingly, Parthiv was also a part of Virat Kohli-led RCB in the IPL.