Australian legend Steve Waugh has called on Rohit Sharma to reflect hard on his own future, insisting that Indian captain Rohit cannot allow himself to become "complacent or relax" if he wants to keep playing a key role in Indian cricket.
With the spotlight growing ever brighter on Rohit's captaincy in the ongoing lead-up to the upcoming Test series against England, Waugh stated that whether Rohit should keep leading the national team must be his own call.
India will kickstart their 2025–27 World Test Championship (WTC) cycle campaign against England in June.
"It is completely his decision," Waugh, a member of the Laureus World Sports Academy, informed PTI.
"He is the only person who can crack this problem. He has to look himself in the mirror and ask, do I still wish to be the captain or represent India? Am I dedicated? Am I dedicating sufficient time and effort to it? It is a privilege and an honour to represent your country. You can't be relaxed or complacent," he said.
Rohit, who celebrates his 38th birthday on April 30, has fought to get into form in his last three Test series—against Bangladesh, New Zealand, and Australia. His recent decision to miss the Sydney Test because of poor form helped contribute to India's 1–3 series loss earlier this year.
Waugh also underlined the need to protect the future of Test cricket, particularly as the shorter T20 version continues to attract global attention. He expressed his fears regarding possible alterations to the WTC structure, specifically the introduction of a two-tier system.
"There is pressure on Test cricket, whether it will endure because we need it as a sport. T20 cricket is fantastic, fantastic for players and fans and fantastic for sponsors but I still believe Test cricket is the very essence of cricket.".
The players that I think still wish to play Tests to know how good they can really be. It's the ultimate challenge. Ensuring that it lives and prospers and remains healthy is vitally important.
There has been controversy regarding the qualification of South Africa for the WTC final since they qualified despite playing fewer games and evading top sides like England and Australia in the 2023–25 cycle. The ICC is said to be mulling changes to the points system with a potential switch to a two-tier system in order to bring more competitiveness.
"Complaints are always there. India played a neutral venue in Dubai in Champions Trophy and people complained about that. You can only do what you can to make it happen. It's not an ideal situation.
Some nations play a lot of Test matches, some don't play much. South Africa might not have played as many as other nations. They were quite successful at what they did.".
I think the two strongest Test playing nations are facing off in the final.
Waugh staunchly dismissed the idea of a two-tier system, citing that it would harm more than it would help, particularly to developing cricket nations.
"I don't like two tier. It softens whoever's in the second tier. Not playing strong teams, they're not going to be able to improve and get better.".
The best sides will continue to improve and get better and it'll just divide world cricket into top-level teams and other teams that are just all right and we want to build the other teams currently.
Even with constant arguments, Waugh is confident the Test cricket we have today is strong, with more competitiveness between various countries.
"Test cricket is fairly strong in fact, it's more like seven or eight sides who can beat each other and that hasn't happened for couple of years so I actually think Test cricket is alright at the moment."
There's also rumour about bringing in bonus points for away wins in the new WTC cycle, something Waugh isn't a big supporter of.
"That's all subjective. How do you declare who's a better team? I believe the system at the moment is quite good. At end of the day, you've got to be consistent, you've got to win away and at home."
Talking about his collaboration with Laureus, Waugh emphasized the evolution and influence of the organization during the last quarter-century.
“It’s been 25 years now this organization which is pretty amazing. We’ve now got the Sport for Good Foundation—it’s got something like 300 projects in 30 odd countries, which is incredible. The work is expanding and seen amazing results, so as an organization it’s really grown over those 25 years.”
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