After Ashwin announced his international retirement, it is rumoured that another veteran to call time on their career during the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy.
Last week after the end of the Brisbane Test when he joined skipper Rohit Sharma in the post-match conference to announce his retirement from all formats of the international game with an immediate effect.
On this occasion, Indian fans might prepare for another possible farewell. If it were to eventuate, it would likely have to be one of Rohit Sharma (37), Virat Kohli (36), or Ravindra Jadeja (36).
However, after the return of KL Rahul has pushed down Rohit Sharma in the batting line up. With Yashasvi Jaiswal, and KL Rahul opening and Shubman Gill looking comfortable at No.3, India would have settled top order.
“The Rahul-Jaiswal opening partnership could be the one that holds Indian cricket together for the next four or five years. They complement each other well,” said a spokesperson.
“Even though Rahul’s been around for 10 years, he’s still just 32, so he can easily go on for another five, six years.
“And I guess the onus then is on Rohit to find ways to score runs.”
Having struggled for runs for some time now, Sundaresan speculated that Rohit could be the one about to call it quits.
“The rumours doing the rounds in India when Ashwin retired — before it happened — was, ‘somebody big is retiring’. It happened to be Ashwin in Melbourne,” the cricket writer and broadcaster said.
“But then the thing was: this is not the only one. So, we’ll have to wait and see.
“I mean, it has to be between Rohit and Virat, and I guess, say if India do not make the World Test Championship final, and because they don’t have any Test matches between now and then, and their next Test series is five Test matches in England, I can totally see a scenario where, if there is no WTC final to play — what’s there for Rohit Sharma to look forward to?
“I’m not making a call on him, but if he doesn’t score runs — or even if he does score runs; it’s always good to go on a high — but for Rohit Sharma’s sake, hopefully that top order that he’s put so much talk on can provide him with a platform and he’s walking out to bat when it’s 4-180 and not 4-80.”
After both sides secured a win and tied series 1-1, India will be looking to improve batting show when they take on Australia in the fourth test which will begin on December 26 in Melbourne Cricket Ground.
