IPL 2025: ‘Am I putting enough effort?’ Steve Waugh advises Rohit Sharma to reflect on Team India future

Former Australia captain and legendary batsman Steve Waugh has delivered a sharp reality check to India’s Test skipper Rohit Sharma, urging him to take a hard look at his leadership and performance.

Waugh’s comments come as the Mumbai Indians veteran has had many people criticise his personal form, which has deteriorated over the last couple of years in both the Indian Premier League and in international cricket.

‘Am I doing enough?’

“It is totally up to him. 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 relaxed,” the world cup winning captain was quoted as saying by News18.

MI’s veteran batsman has had a torrid time in IPL 2025 and registered a string of low scores until his aggressive innings against the Chennai Super Kings in MI’s 9-wicket win on Sunday, at the Wankhede Stadium.

Protect Test cricket

The former Australia skipper also opined on the future of Test cricket as he called for greater protection of the game’s longest format.

The International Cricket Council has been mulling changes to the World Test Championship format, with their key change being introducing a two-tier system. Waugh is not a big fan of the change and believes the current system is robust enough.

“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 cricket into teams that are top level and other teams that are okay and we want to develop 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 a few years, so I actually think Test cricket is going okay right now.”

Red ball troubles

In this year’s IPL Sharma has been relegated to an “Impact Player” for MI and many critics have long been calling for his head in the Indian team after a string of poor scores.

While he did deliver some success for India as captain in white ball ICC tournaments – India won the 2024 T20 World Cup and 2025 ODI Champions Trophy – repeated failures at a personal and team level in Test cricket has invited major scrutiny on the ‘Hitman’.

During the 2024/25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia, Sharma was poor with the bat in the three matches he played, having missed the first Test, before he dropped himself from the last Test at Sydney.

India lost that five-match Test series 2-1.

India’s first assignment in the next WTC cycle (2025-23) is a five-match Test series in England and it remains to be seen if Rohit Sharma, who turns 38 on April 30, will be part of the team.

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