With the Indian cricket team kickstarting their international calendar with a dominating win over West Indies in the first Test by an inning and 140 runs, they will next lock horns in the final Test, set to be played at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi from October 10 to 14. After the conclusion of the red-ball series, they will tour Australia for a limited-overs series, consisting of three ODIs and five T20Is.
The series is of much importance as India prepares for the T20 World Cup, scheduled for 2026 in India and Sri Lanka. While the T20 format will not be the same with Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli now retired from T20Is, they will mark their return to competitive cricket in the ODI leg, which starts from October 19. While the news of Rohit-Kohli’s
return brought smiles on fans faces, but they were equally disappointed with the Mumbai batter being snubbed of captaincy role in ODIs.
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli need domestic cricket to play 2027 WC: Irfan Pathan
This leads to several questions, including their future in Indian cricket, former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan shared a piece of advice for the two veterans as they aim to prolong their career and play the 2027 ODI World Cup. Speaking on his YouTube channel, former Indian all-rounder said, "Rohit has worked well on his fitness. He is focused on that. But there is regular fitness, and then there is game-time fitness. If you are not playing regular cricket, you have to ensure some game time. They have to play domestic cricket."
"They are big players and know what to do. They have all the experience in the world. But they are not even playing T20Is, so there will be big gaps between the few matches that they play before the big World Cup. They will need regular game time to be fit for that. Only then will their dream to play the 2027 World Cup come true," he added.
India's white-ball squad for Australia tour:
ODI squad: Shubman Gill (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (VC), Axar Patel, KL Rahul (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal.
T20I squad: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill (VC), Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Sanju Samson (WK), Rinku Singh, Washington Sundar.
