Conflicts Of Interest And Leadership Dharma: Lessons From Rohit Sharma

Sometime earlier in November, during the initial uncertainty of whether Rohit would participate in the BGT at all or only in some Tests, Sunil Gavaskar made a very important point: Rohit was free to make his personal choices about being with his family versus leading the country, but if he wanted to participate in the series only in a few Tests, he should do so only as a player.

This set me thinking about the past well-known instances of players becoming fathers while playing for or leading the country.

Gavaskar himself was denied permission in 1976 and had to wait two and a half months before he could see newly born Rohan. Similarly, in 2001, Ganguly was leading India in South Africa and could see his daughter Sana only after a month. In 2015, Dhoni remained so focused on his role as the captain that he came to know about his daughter Ziva's birth from his teammate Raina!

Kohli, on the other hand, made a choice to be with his family for the birth of his first child instead of leading his country in BGT 2021, deciding to play the first Test before flying right back. For his second child in 2024, he skipped the entire England series, though this time as a team member rather than as captain.

Leadership Choices

What kind of internal conflicts of interest does a leader face when making decisions about their own participation, either in the series as a whole or in particular Tests?

There are three in the case of a Captain-Batsman:

a) personal reasons, such as becoming a father,
b) his own understanding of his form and whether to play or not,
c) his position in the batting order.

BGT 2024-2025: Analysis of Rohit’s Choices

Rohit skipped the first Test at Perth to be with his family.

I believe representing our country always comes first. I therefore deeply admire players who make the sacrifice to represent their country over being with their family. However, I do understand the changing values that Virat and Rohit represent. For them, clearly, being with their family comes before representing their country. So, if they did face any internal conflict over the choice to be made, we now know where they stood.

Given the fact that we won the first Test so emphatically, what Rohit should have done from the second Test onwards is the question for us to reflect upon. What was his Leadership Dharma? Should he have let Bumrah continue as the captain for the rest of the series, as Gavaskar suggested? In Rohit's case, he had another internal conflict: where should he bat? Should he open or play at number 6? Or should he "opt out," as he did in the last Test?

Taking a decision about yourself is never easy, especially when you tend to think that your form is always just around the corner or that the team simply cannot do without your captaincy skills. It requires Leadership Dharma—an ability to subsume yourself to a larger cause, an ability to be aware of conflicts of interest and to remove yourself from deciding in such situations.

Given his continuous batting failures in the Bangladesh and New Zealand series, I feel he should have chosen to be in the team only as a player, and the choice of whether he would play in a particular Test and, if so, at which position, should have been taken by Coach Gambhir, Captain Bumrah, and Ajit Agarkar as the representative of the selection committee.

Sadly, this was not to be, and we had the result that we saw today.He made a choice to stay away from the first Test, then come back, resume his leadership role, and disturb the rhythm of a winning combination.

A failure of leadership, primarily due to choices he made that did not transcend his conflicts of interest. A failure of Leadership Dharma.

Adios, Rohit. You gave us some extraordinary moments of joy with your craft. But in the end, you left us disappointed with your inability to make the right Dharmic choice as a Leader.