In the midst of calls for a “youth only” policy in the 50-over format after the inexperienced Test squad’s triumph in England, India’s ODI skipper Rohit Sharma began training with former national assistant coach Abhishek Nayar on Tuesday at a facility in the suburbs of Mumbai.
After the IPL, Rohit took a few months off from playing cricket while the Indian men’s team went on a challenging tour of England. Prior to the five Test series in England, he also declared his retirement from Test cricket, and he currently only plays in one format.
He returned last week from a family vacation in England.
With his close friend Nayar, who occasionally serves as his personal coach, Rohit shared an Instagram story from a gymnasium.
Nayar, who has previously worked with players like Dinesh Karthik, KL Rahul, Rinku Singh and young KKR batter Angkrish Raghuvanshi, served as India’s assistant batting coach until the Champions Trophy, after which he was removed from the role. However, everyone who has worked with Nayar has credited him for making significant improvements to their game — including KL Rahul, who trained with him before the England Test series, where he went on to score 532 runs.
The photo shows that Rohit is not quite ready to give up and is still holding out hope that he will be good enough to compete in the 50-over World Cup in 2027, which is still 26 months away.
The current national selection committee wants to make sure that players who are available for the next two years are included in a steady core for the 50-over setup.
There is a school of thinking among Indian team management that suggests offering Rohit a final series against Australia, with Shubman Gill being named the new captain for the 50-over format.
Equally crucial, however, is the perspective of the selection committee and, more importantly, the powerful office-bearers of BCCI.
With 32 hundreds, Rohit is a legend in the ODI format and ranks third in the all-time most hundreds list behind Virat Kohli (51) and Sachin Tendulkar (49).
For the record, in the Champions Trophy final versus New Zealand, Rohit was named the Player of The Match.
