Team India opener Rohit Sharma broke silence on his hamstring injury and speculations around his omission from the white-ball series against Australia. Rohit, who sustained a left hamstring injury during recently concluded Indian Premier League, is currently doing strength and conditioning work at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.
Rohit claims that his hamstring his feeling better and wants to be clear in mind before the Test series against Australia. The 34-year-old’s injury sparked a lot of controversies after he returned to action within days of being left out of the Australia tour earlier this month. However, later Rohit was added to the Test squad. Team India’s limited-overs vice-captain said that he was constantly communicating with BCCI and Mumbai Indians regarding his injury status.
“I don’t know what was going on, to be honest and what all were people talking about. But let me put this on record, I was constantly communicating with BCCI and Mumbai Indians,” Rohit told PTI.
“I told them (Mumbai Indians) that I can take the field since it is the shortest format and I will be able to manage the situation quite nicely. Once I made my mind clear, it was all about focussing on what I needed to do.
“Hamstring is feeling absolutely fine. Just started the process of getting it nice and strong. Before I play the longer format, I absolutely needed to be clear in mind that there is no stone that is left unturned, that’s probably the reason, I’m at the NCA,” Rohit added.
Rohit further said he was not bothered by people’s opinion who talked about his availability for Australia tour.
“So for me, it was not a concern what x, y or z was talking about like whether he would make it to Australia,” he said.
Rohit, who guided Mumbai Indians to their fifth IPL title, revealed that he told the franchise that he’ll be okay to play just before the play-offs.
“Once the injury happened, the next two days all I did was to figure out what I can do in the next 10 days whether I will be able to play or not. But every day, hamstring (degree of injury) was changing. The way it was responding was changing, so I was feeling quite confident that I could play and that is the communication that I had with MI at that point.
“I told them that I think I will be okay to play just before play-offs. If there is any discomfort, I won’t be playing the play-offs.”
All Rohit needed was three and half weeks to get ready for Tests and he fails to understand what the fuss was all about given that the series starts December 17.
“Of course, there is still some work that needs to be done on my hamstring. That’s why I didn’t go to Australia for the white-ball leg as there are back-to-back games. Around 6 games in 11 days,” he said about the limited-overs leg beginning November 27.
“So I thought if I get to work on my body for 25 days, I can probably go and play the Test matches. So it was an easy decision for me and I don’t know why it became so complicated for others,” he wondered aloud.