Rohit Sharma confirms he’s not retiring from ODIs

Indian captain Rohit Sharma has confirmed that he has no plans of retiring from the ODI format, ending all speculations regarding his 50-over format future. Rohit led India to Champions Trophy glory as the Men in Blue registered a four-wicket win at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai on Sunday.

There have been rumors doing the rounds that Rohit could call time on his ODI career after the conclusion of the eight-team tournament. While addressing the media after the win, Rohit himself cleared the air and said he isn’t going anywhere from ODIs.

“One more thing. I’m not going to retire from this format, just to make sure that no rumours are spread moving forward,” Rohit said at the fag end of the presser.

On the other hand, Rohit scored a match-winning knock of 76 runs off 83 balls in the summit clash and bagged the Player of the Match award. He scored seven fours and three sixes as India clinched their seventh ICC title.

Meanwhile, Rohit scored 180 runs in the Champions Trophy, completing the 11,000-run mark during the tournament. In 273 ODIs, he has 11,168 runs at an average of 48.76 with 32 centuries.

Speaking on his aggressive approach, Rohit said, “It (attacking game) is not natural to me but it is something I really wanted to do, when you are trying to do something different you need the backing of the team, you need the backing of the management and they were right through with me. In the ODI World Cup as well with Rahul bhai, this is what I spoke to him and he was very much okay with it, and now Gauti bhai as well. It’s all about getting the backing of the team and the management as well. It’s something I really wanted to do. I have played all these years in a different style, but I wanted to try and do something different, try and see if we can play differently and get the results that we were looking for.”

On the other hand, Virat Kohli will also continue playing in the 50-overs version. Kohli scored 218 runs in the tournament, including a century against Pakistan and a match-winning knock of 84 runs in the semis against Australia.