India captain Rohit Sharma has said that he will continue to play Test and ODI cricket “at least for a while” after ending his T20I career with the World Cup win in the West Indies last month.
Rohit has been on a break along with other seniors like Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah since their victory over South Africa in the final. He was rested from the recent T20 series in Zimbabwe and is also set to miss the limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka later this month.
“I just said it. I don’t look that far ahead. So clearly, you will be seeing me play at least for a while,” the 37-year-old said at an event here on Sunday night.
Earlier in the month, BCCI secretary Jay Shah had confirmed that Rohit will captain India in the ongoing World Test Championship cycle and the Champions Trophy next year in February-March.
Rohit had led India in the 2022 T20 World Cup where the team was ousted in the semi-finals by eventual champions England. A year later, India reached the final of the 50-over World Cup at home under his leadership, but went down to Australia in the summit clash in Ahmedabad.
Rohit was also greeted by fans with shouts of “Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Starc”.
It was the fans’ way of telling the skipper that they enjoyed his taking the Australian apart and will never forget the entertainment in a Super Eight match of the T20 World Cup.
The shouts drew Rohit’s attention instantaneously. “calm down, guys,” he said and followed it up with a cheeky smile while on the stage.
Rohit probably played the best innings of the tournament, scoring 92 runs off just 41 deliveries.
Starc bore the brunt of Rohit’s onslaught, conceding 29 runs in one over where he was smashed for four sixes and
a four.
Reflecting on that episode during the Willow Talk podcast, Starc said: “I have played a lot against him. He had a good tournament, especially at the back end. I think he targeted that wind in St Lucia as well. It was the one end that went for a lot more (runs) than the other.”
“I think I had five bad balls and he hit them all for six.”
Rohit has 4231 runs from 159 T20Is, with five hundreds.
