Former South Africa cricket team skipper Graeme Smith said that Rohit Sharma needs to hit the "refresh" button in order to improve his form in Test cricket. Smith referred to Rohit's current lack of runs in the longest format of the sport and said that consistency has been a problem for the India skipper. Rohit did not have a good outing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 and also in the World Test Championship (WTC) Final against Australia. Smith said that Rohit is currently going through a rough patch and he needs to adopt a fresh approach in the near future.
"One of the biggest challenges of a captain is your own personal performance. The pressure of a leader never goes away. Rohit probably needs to just refresh. His own form hasn't probably been at a level consistent. We look at the IPL over a number of years now and obviously the WTC Final is having a bit of a rough patch and often that personal performance can just settle things down a little bit," Smith was quoted as saying by The Times of India.
Smith also said that regaining his form will also help Rohit in excelling as a captain.
"No one is criticizing his captaincy or leadership style. It's just obviously on the personal performance side, if he can get some really good scores behind him, it takes a lot of that pressure away," he added.
Rohit was dismissed for 15 and 43 in the WTC final against Australia at the Oval.