BCCI: Rohit Sharma must work on endurance before fit to play for India in Australia

Dubai: As Rohit Sharma, the star India batsman, has been formally cleared to fly to Australia and join up with his teammates ahead of the Test series against the hosts, the BCCI has said he will be assessed for endurance at the end of this month before a call on his availability for the last two Test matches are made.

“Team India batsman Rohit Sharma has completed his rehabilitation process at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru and is now clinically fit, the NCA medical Team was satisfied with the physical fitness of Sharma after assessing him on different metrics that tested his skills related to batting, fielding and running between the wickets. Sharma’s physical fitness has been satisfactory, however, he will be required to continue work on his endurance,” a statement from the BCCI said.

The Board added that Rohit has been asked to follow a strict schedule to regain full fitness for the fortnight coronavirus isolation period in Australia.

“He has been given a detailed programme to follow for the duration of the two weeks he will be quarantined for. He will be reassessed by the Team India medical team post his quarantine to establish his fitness status and a call on his participation in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy will be taken accordingly,” added the statement.

Rohit had been rehabilitating and training at NCA since November 19, following a high-grade left hamstring injury suffered during the Indian Premier League in the UAE.

The BCCI had earlier added Rohit to the squad for the Australia Test series after initially excluding him from the tour due to the hamstring injury. However, the lack of information on his fitness status prompted skipper Virat Kohli to speak to media on the issue.

“Well, before we had the selection meeting with selectors in Dubai, we were told that he (Rohit) is injured and unavailable for selection and it mentioned a line that there is a two-week rest and rehab period (they had to undergo). It said that the pros and cons and implications of the injury have been explained to him and he understood that, and he was unavailable for selection and that is the information we got on mail before the selection meeting,” Kohli had said before the start of the ODI series.

“After that, he played the IPL so we all thought he will be on that flight to Australia which he wasn’t on ... we had no information on the reason why he is not travelling with us and after that the only other information we received on mail is that he is in the NCA and he is being assessed,” Kohli had said.

The first Test of the four-match series starts at the Adelaide Oval from December 17.