'Rohit Sharma makes Virat Kohli play better,' says Australian great

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Skipper Rohit Sharma has been earning praises for his captaincy during the ICC World Cup 2023 as India won all their nine matches in the group stages. His aggressive batting approach at the top has taken pressure off Virat Kohli and the rest of the batting order and former Australian opener Matthew Hayden has been a fan of it.

Fans and experts have often pointed out that Rohit Sharma has missed out on bigger knocks in the ICC World Cup 2023 as he has been putting the team first over his individual records. Hayden felt Rohit has made batting look easy.

"Rohit Sharma has been really aggressive in this World Cup tournament," Hayden told Star Sports. "When you think about the mindset of what that means for his side, one is he has made the batting look easy, and two is he has a strike rate of 130 inside the powerplay.

"That has allowed the middle order, especially Virat Kohli, to just set out and put on that computer brain of his and work out exactly what needs to happen. He's been a marquee player for India for some time, missed out in 2011, mind you, come 2023 he is not missing out."

Former Australia white-ball captain Aaron Finch was on same page with Hayden and said his powerplay batting even on slow pitches has put pressure on the rivals from the world go, pushing bowlers into a defensive mode before the first ball is bowled.

"The thought process behind Rohit is he's trying to get the team off to a quick start. You see, the wicket tends to get slower as the tournament has gone on. So, that initial powerplay to put pressure on the opposition is really crucial," said Finch.

"I think what that's done is it's changed the bowler's mindset before the game has even started, knowing that Rohit's going to come really hard at them. They start panicking a bit and maybe go into a defensive mode early on, and that plays into his hands as India has gotten off to some brilliant starts."