Rohit Sharma won’t take part in the India vs Australia 5th Test? With the series on the line, India cricket team head coach Gautam Gambhir may have taken one of the toughest calls in cricket history. Amid reports that all isn’t well in the dressing room, Gambhir decided to attend just his second press conference since taking over as the head coach in Sydney.
Gautam to drop Rohit Sharma for the Sydney Test?
The Indian captain has been in such poor form that even bowlers like Akash Deep and Nathan Lyon have scored more runs than him. In his last fifteen innings, Rohit has scored just 164 runs at an average of 10.93. Things have gone so bad that there have been talks of him stepping down as captain even before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 ends.
And Gambhir may have made matters worse. The Indian head coach didn’t confirm whether Rohit would play in Sydney or not. He was asked, ‘Will Rohit Sharma play tomorrow?’ in the press conference. Fascinatingly, answering the question, Gambhir just said, “We will take the Playing XI call after looking at the pitch tomorrow.”
Jasprit Bumrah, ready to take over?
The only confirmation regarding Team India’s combination for the final match of the India vs Australia Test series was that Akash Deep has been ruled out due to a back spasm. But other than that, Gambhir didn’t comment on the team composition. Considering that no-comment one might even speculate that perhaps Jasprit Bumrah returns as captain in Sydney.
He was the stand-in skipper in Perth, and Team India won that match. Since then, the visitors have been playing catch-up, and now that Bumrah has been confirmed for the Sydney Test by Gambhir and uncertainty looms over Rohit Sharma’s spot in the playing XI, we might see a permanent captaincy change.
Team India’s squad for the Sydney Test
Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Sarfaraz Khan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Prasidh Krishna, Shubman Gill, Devdutt Padikkal, Tanush Kotian, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Harshit Rana
