Indian captain Virat Kohli has said that the entire episode surrounding Rohit Sharma‘s injury has been “very confusing”, exacerbated by a “lot of uncertainty and lack of clarity”. Speaking on the eve of India’s ODI series opener against Australia, Kohli said that ideally both Rohit and fast bowler Ishant Sharma should have been in Australia to complete recovery from their respective injuries which would have allowed them to play in the Test leg of tour.
Both players were ruled out of the first two Tests of the four-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which is scheduled to start with the day-night Test in Adelaide from December 17.
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Speaking on the Rohit situation, Kohli said that initially the senior batsman was ruled out when the squads for Australia tour were picked in October.
“Before we had the selection meeting in Dubai, we had got an email two days before that, which said that he is unavailable for selection [as] he has picked an injury during the IPL, Kohli said at the virtual media briefing on Thursday in Sydney. “And it mentioned there was a two-week rest and rehab period. The pros and cons and the implications of the injury has been explained to him and he understood that. And he was unavailable for selection. That was the information we got on mail before the selection meeting. After that he played in the IPL, so we all thought on that flight to Australia, which he wasn’t. And we had no information whatsoever on the reason on why he is not traveling with us.”
Having sat out four matches for Mumbai Indians during the league phase of the IPL, Rohit made a successful return and was the player of the match in the final where he helped Mumbai to an unprecedented fifth IPL title. However he was not part of the Indian contingent that flew directly from Dubai to Sydney on November 11.
More to follow…