India’s outgoing batting coach Vikram Rathour, whose term with team India as batting coach came to an end at the end of T20I World Cup 2024, has emphasised the importance of smooth transition at team India in the wake of T20I retirements by stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Rathour’s journey with team India ended at the end of T20I World Cup where India emerged triumphant with the title victory. 

After India’s victory, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja announced their retirements from T20Is. Underlining the significant contributions of these tremendous players, Rathour noted that it will be difficult to replace the players of Rohit and Kohli’s stature. Over the years, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been the mainstay at team India’s batting lineup. 

Recently, team India played a five-match T20I series under the leadership of Shubman Gill, where the likes of Abhishek Sharma, Shivam Dube and Ruturaj Gaikwad left their marks by playing great innings. 

"It is never going to be easy to replace people of Rohit and Virat's calibre," Rathour told PTI. 

"The recently-concluded [T20I] series against Zimbabwe gave us some glimpse into how the T20 team will look like in future. But we still have a few years in Test and ODI cricket to get to that point."

"I won't be too concerned about it. We have a lot of depth in Indian cricket. There are lots of very talented and skilful players who are coming through the system. The only thing we need to make sure is the transition is done in a controlled manner. It needs to be gradual."

Rathour also mentioned that by the time Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli call time on their international career, involving all formats, young guns would have established themselves. 

"I am hoping that by then, players like Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, to name a few, would establish themselves and will make the transition smooth.” 

”In ODIs also, we have experienced players like Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya to take over.”