"Beginning of Hitman's era!" - Twitter erupts as Rohit Sharma replaces Virat Kohli as India's ODI captain

In a bombshell announcement, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) relieved Virat Kohli from India's ODI captaincy and named Rohit Sharma as his successor on Wednesday.

The move was being speculated since Virat Kohli stepped down from the T20I captaincy, allowing Rohit Sharma to take over. There was a prevalent opinion in the fraternity that split-captaincy in the two white-ball formats won't work, especially with a T20 World Cup and an ODI World Cup lined up in two years.

It was also reported recently that the board was in contact with both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to discuss the future of the format. Still, the announcement, without any such indication from Kohli, is certain to catch many by surprise.

Similar stupefaction was also visible on social media as Twitter went wild with responses and opinions. While some celebrated the beginning of a "new era", others rued Virat Kohli's departure. The remainder joined the fun with hilarious memes. The following are the best of the reactions:

Rohit Sharma's ODI captaincy record

Rohit Sharma will now hold the reigns of both India's ODI and T20Is sides, while Virat Kohli will continue to lead in Test cricket. Rohit's first full-time ODI captaincy assignment will be an away three-match series in South Africa, which will begin on January 19 in Paarl.

The 34-year-old has led India in 10 ODIs so far, winning eight of them. The ODI captaincy sits light on him too, as in the position he has scored a double century, a century and four fifties. His job will be to build a team strong enough to win at least one of the two upcoming World Cups and end India's ICC trophy drought.

It would also be interesting to see how this impacts Virat Kohli's batting performance. It will certainly be an ease of workload for him but much like Rohit Sharma, the captaincy also brought out the best in the Test skipper.

Whether or not Rohit can bring his IPL Midas touch to international cricket and how much batting support he gets from his predecessor will define the next two years of Indian cricket.