R Ashwin Believes Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli Can Win World Cup

It has been a decade since Team India won any ICC tournament. MS Dhoni is the only Indian captain to have won 3 ICC trophies: T20 World Cup (2007), ODI World Cup (2011), and ICC Champions Trophy (2013). However, after MS Dhoni left, Virat Kohli couldn’t help India lift the trophy despite coming close. In the 2021, after losing to New Zealand, India got knocked out in the group stage itself. That was India’s worst performance to date.

They bounced back in this year’s T20 competition in Australia reaching the semi-finals but a 10-wicket loss against England ended their journey. India hasn’t performed poorly statistically, but Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have come under heavy fire for their lack of titles. Ravichandran Ashwin, their teammate, and all-rounder disagreed with all the criticism. Ashwin cited the great Sachin Tendulkar as an instance, claiming that it took him six tries to fulfill his ambition of winning the trophy.

India will host ODI World Cup 2023 in the month of October-November

“It’s easy to say you haven’t won this and so on. After the 1983 World Cup, the great Sachin Tendulkar played the 1992, 1996, 1999, 2003, and 2007 World Cups. He finally won the World Cup in 2011. He had to wait for 6 World Cups to finally win one. Just because another stalwart MS Dhoni came and won a World Cup as soon as he took charge, doesn’t mean it’ll happen to everyone, right? These players (Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli), didn’t play in 2007. Rohit Sharma missed out on the 2011 World Cup. Only Kohli played in 2011, 2015, and 2019 and now he will play his fourth World Cup in 2023,” R Ashwin said.

This is Rohit Sharma’s first ODI Cup as the captain. The BCCI also seems serious this time to lift the cup. For the same, the cricketing board held a review meeting at the start of the year and shortlisted 20 players that will be in the scheme of things. Additionally, a separate team for the T20 World Cup is also being worked upon.