 "Rohit Sharma’s daredevilry stands out in Kanpur victory as India continue to thrive under his leadership")
“The path to empowerment leadership doesn’t begin when other people start to trust you. It begins when you start to trust yourself,” says Harvard Business Review’s 10 must read on Trust.
In a refreshingly authentic take on the modern leadership, it further adds. “Trust has three core drivers: authenticity, logic, and empathy. People tend to trust you when they believe they are interacting with the real you (authenticity), when they have faith in your judgment and competence (logic), and when they feel that you care about them (empathy).”
If you were to sum up the unique leadership style of Indian Test and ODI captain Rohit Sharma, one doesn’t have to go far but to borrow this quote from HBR. And you can be certain Rohit will likely not have read the above piece, nor will encounter it in the future!
However, the 37-year-old’s leadership is not derived from academic rigours but from his down-to-earth persona. This writer has been covering all of India’s international matches since Rohit took over the leadership from Virat Kohli, and it is amply evident that the Mumbaikar wants to leave behind a legacy that is in stark contrast to Kohli and MS Dhoni’s brand of captaincy. Former India player Sanjay Manjrekar too had echoed the same view recently.
The Indian captain got just 31 across two innings at Kanpur’s Green Park and yet he got a thunderous appreciation for his audacious approach which of course is not unfamiliar to those who have watched his breathtaking intent during the ODI World Cup campaign in 2023 or T20 World Cup in USA and the Caribbean earlier this year.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“When we bowled them out, we had a discussion that we will go hammer and tongs. Rohit went out and walked the talk, so we had to follow the same,” said ‘Player of the Series’ Ravichandran Ashwin during the press conference after India's seven-wicket win over Bangladesh .
Read | Should India have fixed Test centres? Here's what Ashwin said in Kanpur
It is difficult to pin-point which teammate is closest to the captain from his interactions in net sessions and chats in team hotels across the world. If he has terrific rapport with the likes of Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane (who are not part of the team now), he is equally loveable a character around Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill.
Few months back, Kuldeep Yadav told this writer in a special interview how Rohit used to be so involved with his progress when he was out of the Indian team and was working on his comeback at the NCA. That act won his heart. Ravindra Jadeja and Ashwin are of course buddies and Axar Patel too told this writer recently how during the T20 World Cup final, the captain’s clarity towards his specific role was instrumental in him playing a significant knock in final.
Jasprit Bumrah may have started under Rohit as a junior but now commands the same respect Rohit has for Kohli.
And it is his evolving relationship with former India captain that is the most significant validation of his leadership. During the England and West Indies tours in 2022, Rohit granted Kohli an olive branch where then-coach Rahul Dravid was the one who used to do all the talking in nets. You could see how much Rohit wanted Kohli to be at his best as the premier batsman of his team across the formats.
Rohit’s rapport with Kohli from the 2023 Caribbean tour couldn’t be more different from all the gossip mongering and conspiracy theories on their alleged rivalry. Since the T20 World Cup victory, you could see Kohli and Rohit in the team as two icons who have such a mutual admiration for each other. Now a days, you could see the frequency of on-field interactions as well the off-field banter.
Of course, there were many heroes and magical moments during the Kanpur Test that concluded on Tuesday. From Jaiswal’s twin fifties and Kohli’s useful contributions in each innings to KL Rahul’s breathtaking fifty. The triumvirate of Ashwin-Bumrah-Kohli once again proved that they are not reliant on pitches to force the issues. The large heartedness of young Akash Deep and Mohammed Siraj too played a vital role in this miraculous victory.
Captain @ImRo45 collects the @IDFCFIRSTBank Trophy from BCCI Vice President Mr. @ShuklaRajiv 👏👏#TeamIndia complete a 2⃣-0⃣ series victory in Kanpur 🙌
— BCCI (@BCCI) October 1, 2024
Scorecard - https://t.co/JBVX2gyyPf#INDvBAN pic.twitter.com/Wrv3iNfVDz
However, the one thing that will not be forgotten soon is the daredevilry of the captain’s decision to go berserk from the word go which made the ‘Bazball’ look like its poor cousin.
“When we came on day four, we thought, okay, let’s try and get them out as quickly as possible and then see with the bat what we can do. Once they had got 230-odd, we said it was not about the runs we get but it was about the overs we wanted to bowl at them. It meant we had to try and up the run-rate and score as many as possible because the pitch did not have much for the bowlers," explained the captain about his thought process to the host broadcaster after the seven-wicket win.
Like Dhoni, Rohit too wears his greatness and captain’s authority very lightly. That doesn’t mean there is no tough side of him which is often masked by his memorable one-liners on stump cameras. And yet one can safely say that there has never been more joyful and happier dressing room where everyone enjoys each other’s success as their own.
Just a few days back Ashwin had revealed on his Hindi YouTube channel that how he could publicly express himself on the advantage of Impact Player’s role in IPL which was in contrast with his captain. Many of the captain’s contemporaries have told this writer that there is no insecurity in Rohit as person as well as captain and not only he but everyone in the team can have their own ideas and best decision are made after consulting all and yet the final decision is the result of Rohit’s instinctive leadership.
In the last leg of his international career one can imagine that the Indian captain wants to make this team as a formidable unit which has now won 18 consecutive Test series on home soil and their crack at the third consecutive World Test Championship final also looks on track. To summarise the impact of Rohit on his team, one has to revisit HBR’s fine perspective on authentic leadership where which fits so aptly on the Indian captain.
“Trust is also one of the most essential forms of capital a leader has. Building trust, however, often requires thinking about leadership from a new perspective. The traditional leadership narrative is all about you: your vision and strategy; your ability to make the tough calls and rally the troops; your talents, your charisma, your heroic moments of courage and instinct. But leadership really isn’t about you. It’s about empowering other people as a result of your presence, and about making sure that the impact of your leadership continues into your absence.”
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