Former India head coach Ravi Shastri said he would have ensured Rohit Sharma, who recently announced his retirement from Test cricket, had taken the field for the final Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test against Australia in Sydney earlier this year. Last week, Rohit ended his Test cricket with 4,301 runs in 67 matches at an average of 40.57, including 12 centuries and a career-best score of 212. As India’s Test captain from 2022, Rohit led the team in 24 Tests and won on 12 occasions, including the side becoming runners-up in the 2023 World Test Championship (WTC) final.
But a poor run of form since September last year meant Rohit’s Test career was in a tricky situation. In the home series against Bangladesh and New Zealand, Rohit was able to cross the 50-run mark only once, while averaging only 10.93.
After missing the first Test in Perth due to the birth of his son, Rohit came back to play in the next three Tests, but scored just 31 runs. That poor run resulted in Rohit, 38, sitting out of the final Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test at the SCG in January.
“I saw Rohit a lot at the toss (during an IPL match). At the toss, you don’t get enough time to speak. Though I did put my hand on his shoulder in one of the games. I think it was in Mumbai, and I told him, if I were the coach, you would have never not played that last Test match.
“You would have played that last Test match because the series wasn’t over. And I’m not someone who threw in the towel with the scoreline 2-1. If your mindset is you feel you are… that’s not the stage, you leave a team,” said Shastri on The ICC Review show.
With the series poised at 2-1 at that time, Shastri further elaborated why Rohit should have played the Test match in Sydney. “That was a 30-40 run game. And that’s exactly what I told him. The pitch was so spicy in Sydney. Whatever kind of form he was in, he’s a match-winner.
“If he had gone, sensed the situation, sensed the condition and smashed it for even 35-40 at the top, you never know. That series would have been level. But that’s each one to his own. Other people have different styles. This would have been my style and I let him know it. It’s sitting in my heart for a long time. I had to get it out. And I told him that.”
The Test retirements of Rohit and Virat Kohli means that India will enter a new era of Test cricket when their much-awaited five-match tour of England starts on June 20 in Headingley. The five Tests against England will also mark the beginning of the new ICC World Test Championship cycle for India.
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