IND vs SL: Rohit Sharma opens up about his T20I future, Jasprit Bumrah's injury ahead of Guwahati ODI

India captain Rohit Sharma hasn’t given up on playing T20I cricket despite being replaced by Hardik Pandya as the new shortest-format captain recently. Following India’s semi final exit from the T20 World Cup in Australia last year, the call for a new look Indian team in T20Is took the centre stage. It was only after that the then selection panel was sacked and decision to remove Rohit as the T20I captain was taken. Now, ahead of the first ODI against Sri Lanka in Guwahati on Tuesday,Rohit addressed the media and opened up on his T20I future and also spoke on Jasprit Bumrah, who after getting recalled for the Lanka series earlier, got dropped on the eve of the first match.

Citing players’ workload management as a reason for not remaining in current scheme of things in T20Is, Rohit said the management had cleared earlier that concentration would remain on the ODIs in 2023 given it is a World Cup year. The veteran batter added some players cannot play all three formats and would be rotated, and that he very much falls in the that category.

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"It was made clear in the past that it's a World Cup year for us, 50-over World Cup and for some of the guys, it's not possible to play all formats. If you look at the schedule, the matches are back-to-back. So we decided on looking at some players' workload. We give them enough break time and manage them and I definitely fall in that," Rohit Sharma said on the eve of the first ODI.

Rohit said following the IPL this year, he will look into how things are panning out and then probably will take a call on his T20I future. But one thing that he asserted is he surely hasn’t thought about not playing this format.

"We have only 6 T20Is, 3 are over. We have 3 more against New Zealand. So we will manage to look after those till the IPL and we will see what happens after the IPL. But certainly, I have not decided to give up the format," Rohit added.

Rohit on Jasprit Bumrah

Out since September last year due to back injury, ace India seamer Jasprit Bumrah was recalled to India’s ODI squad against Sri Lanka recently. A couple of days later after this announcement was made, the BCCI on Monday, in a statement said that Bumrah wouldn’t be taking part in the upcoming ODI series.

Elaborating on Bumrah’s scenario, Rohit said, “It’s very unfortunate for him. The poor guy has been working really hard at the NCA for all this time,” Rohit said in the presser.

“Just when he got back, he had full fitness, he started bowling and everything. In the last two days, I think this incident happened when he felt a little bit of stiffness in his back. It’s nothing major, it’s just stiffness. And when Bumrah says anything, we have to be very cautious about it and that is what we did,” the captain added.

“I thought it was important for us to make that decision to pull him out because when we named him, he was in the process of getting his workload done, he was bowling in the nets. We need to be very careful with him. He had a major injury before the World Cup, so we have to be careful,” Rohit concluded.

The first of the three ODIs against Sri Lanka will be beginning on Tuesday, January 10th in Guwahati.The match will start at 1:30 PM and will be telecasted on Star network on TV and on Hotstar on online.