Explained: Why Shubman Gill has replaced Rohit Sharma as India ODI captain

Shubman Gill replaced Rohit as India's Test captain after the latter retired from the format ahead of the recent England tour. Now, Gill has also taken over from him in the 50-over format, in which their last assignment was a successful Champions Trophy campaign earlier this year. Rohit, however, continues to be a part of the squad, as does Virat Kohli.

India's squad for Australia tour

ODI squad: Shubman Gill (c), Shreyas Iyer (vc), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Dhruv Jurel, Axar Patel, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna.

T20I squad: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma, Sanju Samson, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana.

ALSO READ: India announce ODI, T20I squads for Australia: New ODI captain named, five Champions Trophy winners miss out

Why has Gill replaced Rohit has ODI captain?

Chief selector Ajit Agarkar announced the India squads at a press conference in Ahmedabad on Saturday. He explained that the reasoning behind moving the captaincy on from Rohit to Gill was based on the fact that having different captains for different formats is not feasible.

"It is very difficult to have three different captains for three formats, in terms of not just selectors but more importantly even for the coach, to plan with three different people is never easy," Agarkar said. India's T20I captain currently is Suryakumar Yadav, meaning Rohit continuing as ODI captain would have meant having different skippers in each format.

Agarkar also talked about preparing for the future: "Obviously, at some stage, you have to start looking at where the next World Cup will be. It's also a format that is played the least now. So you don't get that many games to actually give the next guy, or if there is going to be another guy, that much time to prepare himself or plan.

"We are two years away still, might look like a long time, but we don't quite know how many one-day games we might play. Closer to the World Cup we might end up playing a little bit more than what we have, but the last one-day game we played was what, 8th or 9th March in Champions Trophy, and the next one we play is in October 19th, so it is a bit of a challenge with one-day cricket at the moment "

India play three ODIs against Australia this month, followed by three more against South Africa in November-December, and against New Zealand in January. Following that, India have ODI series scheduled against Afghanistan, England, West Indies, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka before the end of 2026.

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What was Rohit Sharma's record as India ODI captain?

Rohit led in 56 ODIs, with India winning 42 of those. His first match as ODI captain was in 2017 against Sri Lanka, in the series where he scored his third double hundred in the format. His last, on the other hand, was the 2025 Champions Trophy final against New Zealand.

Rohit famously led India in the 2023 World Cup which they lost to Australia in the final. He then followed it up with a T20 World Cup victory in 2024 in the Caribbean.

With the bat, Rohit had far better numbers as captain than as a player. His average as captain was nearly 3.5 points higher than his career average, while his strike rate as captain was an astonishing 111.97.