Bengaluru: India batsman and victorious IPL captain Rohit Sharma has started his fitness training at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru on Thursday (November 19), PTI reported. Other than Rohit, India’s Test squad will be eagerly waiting on the news of pacer Ishant Sharma’s fitness.
On Wednesday (November 18), senior pacer Ishant Sharma, who is also doing his injury rehab at the NCA, bowled full tilt under the supervision of chief selector Sunil Joshi and NCA head Rahul Dravid.
The ESPNCricinfo website tweeted a minute-long clip of Ishant bowling from his full run-up watched by Dravid and Joshi.
Ishant Sharma bowls at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru as he looks to prove his fitness for India's Test series against Australia. pic.twitter.com/jfwGCY3ag2
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) November 18, 2020
Rohit is not a part of India’s limited-overs squad for the Tour Down Under and selectors included him in the revised Test squad after he played two IPL games for Mumbai Indians besides the final. Though Rohit said he was absolutely fine, the BCCI felt he needed more time to recover from the hamstring injury he had suffered during the IPL, triggering a massive debate over his fitness status.
Rohit had suffered a hamstring tear in his left leg during the Mumbai Indians’ match against the Kings XI Punjab in Dubai on October 18. He missed the team’s next four games, but came back for the last three, helping them lock the title with a match-winning half-century against the Delhi Capitals in the final.
“Rohit is injured at the moment. Otherwise, why would we leave out a player like him? He is the vice-captain of the national (limited-overs’) team,” Ganguly had said.
“We will have to assess him. I don’t know (when he can come back). He hasn’t played so far since the time he has got injured. We want him to recover. It’s the BCCI’s job to get their best players on the park. If he recovers, he plays,” Dada further had said.
Rohit’s fitness has become even more crucial since skipper Virat Kohli won’t be available after the first Test in Australia as his wife Anushka Sharma is expecting their child. Both Ishant and Rohit will fly to Australia together and undergo a 14-day quarantine before joining the team. But it isn’t yet clear if they will be available for both the warm-up fixtures leading into the first Test in Adelaide from December 17.
India Test squad: Virat Kohli (C) (first Test only), Ajinkya Rahane (Vice-Captain), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (WK), Rishabh Pant (WK), Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Siraj.
