Former Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin reckons Rohit Sharma’s retirement speculation wasn’t merely outside noise. It was earlier reported that Rohit would play his final ODI game at Lord’s, but he answered the critics in style. However, BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia downplayed such speculations.
Rohit scored a brilliant knock of 138 runs off 110 balls in the third ODI at the iconic venue on Sunday as he became the first Indian batter to score an ODI century at Lord’s. However, his efforts went in vain as India could not chase down a gargantuan total of 388 runs and lost the series by 2-1.
The veteran batter scored 17 fours and five sixes in his blistering knock as he batted at the top of his game.
Furthermore, it was reported that there is a rift in the dressing room between head coach Gautam Gambhir and veteran batter Virat Kohli, but such claims were denied by batting coach Sitanshu Kotak.
“See, when the news of Rohit Sharma’s potential retirement broke. Okay, you call it outside noise. I won’t call it that. There is a saying in Tamil: ‘There is no smoke without fire’. There was fire, but he scored runs. He showed he can do it. In his mind, I don’t think there is any doubt that he can play the 2027 World Cup,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
Ashwin reckons Rohit could have won the Lord’s game for India if he had been slightly fitter.
“I feel that this is Rohit’s road to a comeback after an injury. If he were in a slightly better state or were more confident, he could have scored 180 and won the match for the team. I felt like Rohit was in really good form,” Ashwin said.
The former CSK all-rounder said the selectors can not touch Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma as the duo has performed consistently.
“They cannot touch Virat and Rohit if they want to play. It is because of their credentials. Rohit has scored almost 12,000 runs; they cannot touch him. The other thing is that they are batters, and if you touch them, they have an army. People come to see them. If you drop them, it will just break the roof down,” Ashwin had earlier said on his YouTube channel.
Virat Kohli returned with scores of 5, 65, and 74 in three ODIs against England.
