No room for complacency: Waugh on Rohit's captaincy and Test future

Madrid: Australia legend Steve Waugh believes under-fire Rohit Sharma can’t afford to be "complacent or relax" if he wants to continue serving Indian cricket, including making a call on his captaincy ahead of the upcoming Test series against England.

With questions swirling around Rohit’s future, Waugh said the decision to lead India must come from the man himself.

India will begin their 2025–27 World Test Championship (WTC) cycle with the England series starting in June.

"It is totally up to him," Waugh, a member of the Laureus World Sports Academy, told PTI.

"He is the only one who can solve that problem. He has got to look himself in the mirror and say, do I still want to be captain or play for India? Am I committed? "Am I putting enough time and effort into it? It is a privilege and an honour to play for your country. You can't be complacent or relax," added Waugh.

Rohit, who turns 38 on April 30, has endured a lean run in his last three Test series against Bangladesh, New Zealand, and Australia. He opted out of the Sydney Test citing poor form, as India lost the series 1–3 earlier this year.

Waugh also called for greater protection of Test cricket amidst the rising popularity of T20 leagues, while pushing back against proposed changes to the WTC format, including the introduction of a two-tier system.

"There is stress on Test cricket, whether it will survive because we need it as a sport. T20 cricket is amazing, great for players and spectators and great for sponsors but I still think Test cricket is the very essence of cricket.

"The players I believe still want to play Tests to see how good they can actually be. It's the ultimate contest. Making sure that it survives and thrives and is healthy is really important." There has been criticism from certain quarters after South Africa qualified for the WTC final despite playing fewer matches and avoiding top teams such as England and Australia in the 2023-25 cycle.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has been mulling major changes to the points system, with a two-tier format also discussed in a bid to make the WTC more competitive.

"There's always complaints. In Champions Trophy, India played a neutral ground in Dubai and people complained about that You have to do what you can to make things happen. It's not a perfect situation.

"Some countries play a lot of Test matches, some don't play many. South Africa probably didn't play as many as other countries. They were pretty successful in what they did.

"I believe the two best Test playing countries are lining up in the final." Waugh shot down the idea of a two-tier system, saying it would only widen the gap in world cricket and not contribute to the development of other teams.

"I don't like two tier, It weakens whoever's in the second tier not playing in strong sides, they're not going to be able to improve and get better.

"The top sides will keep getting better and stronger and it'll just separate world crickeinto teams that are top level and other teams that are okay and we want to develop t other teams right now." "Test cricket is pretty strong actually, it's probably seven or eight sides capable of beating each other and that hasn't been the case for few years so I actually think Test cricket is going okay right now."

There have also been reports that bonus points for away wins could be introduced from the 2025-27 WTC cycle. Waugh, however, did not support the idea.

"That's all subjective. How do you say who's a stronger team? I think the current system is pretty good. At end of the day, you've got to be consistent, you've got to win both away and at home.

Talking about Laureus, Waugh said: "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."