Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has opined that Rohit Sharma made some good bowling changes in the first ODI after India won the fixture by six wickets. He further added that Rohit still needs to place better fielders at crucial positions based on their throwing capability and skills.

India made a fine start to the three match ODI series against West Indies as they won the series opener by six wickets. It was Rohit Sharma’s first assignment as full-time ODI skipper of the Indian team and was also the 1000th historic Test match. Rohit contributed to the victory with a half-century while Yuzvendra Chahal was the pick of the bowlers as he bagged four wickets in his spell. 

Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has opined that Rohit did a good job at captaincy and made the right kind of bowling changes. He also suggested that the India captain should place better fielders at crucial points.

“I think he was very good. He made the right kind of bowling changes. Field placements were good. Maybe the one are that he should be looking at keeping the right fielder at the position. Sometimes you want to have a fielder who is very quick, who has got a good arm on the boundary and they can save the boundaries and get the ball in and make sure that the extra run is not there,” Gavaskar said on Star Sports.

Today he had someone like Prasidh Krishna who is a work in progress as far as fielding is concerned. So he should be somewhere inside and somebody who is quick…like Ishan Kishan, who doesn’t have the greatest of throwing arms.” 

“But these are the two fielders who should be in the 30-yard circle and not in the deep where they have to do the chasing. Have guys like Washington Sundar. But again this is the first match and he is having a sense of what the fielders are like. In the next match you will see different things altogether,” he said.

Gavaskar also rated Rohit’s captaincy as he was impressed with the leadership shown by the right-hander. Gavaskar rated his captaincy at 9.99 on a scale of 1 to 10.

“With a win like this, it is always a good start and he contributed to the win in terms of scoring with what is your specialty, that is batting. You have done that and of course been able to make the bowling changes, the field placing. You get just about everything right. So I think if you ask me on a scale of 10, I will give him 9.99,” he said.

The second fixture of the series will be played on February 9 in Ahmedabad.