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BCCI VP Rajeev Shukla said Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma weren’t forced to retire from Tests and T20Is, and will be available for ODIs.
Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have both retired from T20Is and Tests.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) vice-president Rajeev Shukla on Tuesday said the board is ‘feeling’ the absence of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in Tests and T20Is, but re-iterated that they didn’t ‘tell’ them to retire. He also confirmed that both of them will remain ‘available’ for ODIs.
Kohli and Rohit retired from T20Is after the 2024 T20 World Cup. Then, in May this year, they called off their Test careers within days of each other. Shubman Gill has taken over as the Test captain and is currently leading the side in England for the five-Test Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.
“I want to make it very clear, once and for all,” Shukla told reporters on the sidelines of India men and women’s teams meet with Engand monarch King Charles III. “We all feel Rohit and Virat’s absence, but they made the decision on their own. It’s the BCCI’s policy that they don’t tell any player when they should take retirement from which format. That’s on the players. It was their decision. We’ll always feel their absence and consider them as batting greats. The good thing is they are available for ODIs,” he added.
Rohit and Kohli could have made their international return next month had India’s tour of Bangladesh not been canceled. They’ll now have to wait till October when Australia visit here, unless the BCCI arranges a new tour in August.
Shukla also offered a voice of support for Gill.
“Shubman Gill has established himself as a good Captain,” he said. “He has also proved himself with the bat with so many centuries and double centuries. What can be better than that?”
India are trailing 2-1 after losing the first Test and the most recent third game at Lord’s, which went down to the wire with a margin of 22 runs.
‘Only the men’s team was supposed to meet King Charles’: BCCI VP
Shukla, curiously, also revealed that the BCCI was only planning to take the men’s team to St. James Palace to meet King Charles III. However, Palace made a request to invite the women’s team, which are also in England playing a white-ball series, as well.
“Initially, only the men’s team was supposed to meet, but the Palace told us that the women’s team was also in England, and it wouldn’t look good if only the men’s team was sent. So we called the women’s team from Southampton as well,” Shukla said.
Harmanpreet Kaur and Co. won the five-T20I series 3-2 and will now play three ODIs.
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