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World No. 1 Test bowler Jasprit Bumrah, who is leading India in the 5th Test against Australia, has called the move by Rohit Sharma to ‘opt to rest’ as one of the positives in the Indian team.
Jasprit Bumrah has backed Rohit Sharma’s decision to sit out of 5th Test against Australia. (Picture Credit: AP)
Star Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah has backed Rohit Sharma’s decision to sit out of the fifth Test against Australia, which is taking place at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Rohit, who only managed to score 31 runs in his last five Test innings, is not playing in Sydney. In his place, KL Rahul will open for India, and Shubman Gill will come out to bat at No. 3.
Bumrah, who also led India in the series opener against Australia, has called the move by Rohit as one of the positives in the Indian team. While speaking to former India head coach Ravi Shastri during the toss, Bumrah, who has been in red-hot form these days, said that the spirits were “positive” in the dressing room.
“Yeah, the chat was pretty good. We’re trying to keep the spirits positive and obviously trying to keep the positives in mind and keep the learnings as well,” said Bumrah.
Jasprit Bumrah said, “our captain Rohit Sharma has opted to rest for this Test, so this shows there’s lots of unity in this team”. pic.twitter.com/HJvzJEAfLL— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) January 2, 2025
“Obviously, our captain (Rohit Sharma) has shown his leadership as well. He’s opted to rest in this game. So that shows that there’s a lot of unity in our team. There’s no selfishness. Whatever is in the team’s best interest, we’re looking to do that,” he added.
31 runs for Rohit
Rohit, who missed the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy due to delayed arrival in Australia following the birth of his second child, played in the second, third, and fourth Tests but failed to do much with the bat. He came out to bat at No. 6 in the second and third matches and only scored 3, 6, and 10 runs.
After three failures in the lower middle order, Rohit opened for India in the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and scored 3 and 9 runs.
Playing XIs
India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah (C), Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj
Australia: Sam Konstas, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Beau Webster, Alex Carey (WK), Pat Cummins (C), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland
- Location :
Sydney, Australia
