diff --git a/solr/CHANGES.txt b/solr/CHANGES.txt
index 9bf245d49b4..596d63ec334 100644
--- a/solr/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/solr/CHANGES.txt
@@ -174,6 +174,8 @@ Other Changes
   recovery scenarios after the leader receives an error trying to forward an
   update request to a replica. (Timothy Potter)
 
+* SOLR-6116: Refactor DocRouter.getDocRouter to accept routerName as a String. (shalin)
+
 Optimizations
 ----------------------
 
diff --git a/solr/solrj/src/java/org/apache/solr/common/cloud/ClusterState.java b/solr/solrj/src/java/org/apache/solr/common/cloud/ClusterState.java
index e5bd28b9f8d..e4a846520ab 100644
--- a/solr/solrj/src/java/org/apache/solr/common/cloud/ClusterState.java
+++ b/solr/solrj/src/java/org/apache/solr/common/cloud/ClusterState.java
@@ -303,7 +303,7 @@ public class ClusterState implements JSONWriter.Writable {
       router = DocRouter.getDocRouter((String)routerObj);
     } else {
       Map routerProps = (Map)routerObj;
-      router = DocRouter.getDocRouter(routerProps.get("name"));
+      router = DocRouter.getDocRouter((String) routerProps.get("name"));
     }
 
     return new DocCollection(name, slices, props, router, version);
diff --git a/solr/solrj/src/java/org/apache/solr/common/cloud/DocRouter.java b/solr/solrj/src/java/org/apache/solr/common/cloud/DocRouter.java
index 088d272a26c..e062c8845a9 100644
--- a/solr/solrj/src/java/org/apache/solr/common/cloud/DocRouter.java
+++ b/solr/solrj/src/java/org/apache/solr/common/cloud/DocRouter.java
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ public abstract class DocRouter {
   public static final DocRouter DEFAULT = new CompositeIdRouter();
 
 
-  public static DocRouter getDocRouter(Object routerName) {
+  public static DocRouter getDocRouter(String routerName) {
     DocRouter router = routerMap.get(routerName);
     if (router != null) return router;
     throw new SolrException(SolrException.ErrorCode.SERVER_ERROR, "Unknown document router '"+ routerName + "'");