On Monday, India head coach Gautam Gambhir addressed the media ahead of the team’s departure for Australia for the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Team India has a tough challenge ahead as they will play the mighty australians in a five-match Test series with the challenge of keeping their slim World Test Championship final prospects intact. This series will be challenging but important, especially because Rohit Sharma and his team will be coming off a very embarrassing 0-3 loss to New Zealand in a Test series at home.
As the excitement builds up around the upcoming tour of Australia which will begin on November 22 in Perth, it has emerged that the skipper Rohit is unlikely to play the opening fixture as he has some family engagements.
Nevertheless, Gambhir, the head rider reiterated in the press conference that there is still no final news availed concerning the absence of Rohit.
“At the moment there’s no confirmation. Hopefully he will be available. We’ll let you know,” Gambhir told the press.
The head coach also remarked that in case Rohit was ruled out from the first match, the vice-captain carried out by star pacer Jasprit Bumrah will be the one wearing the captain’s cap.
Apart from captaincy, the absence of Rohit would also provide an opportunity to another player to come in the team as an opener. With respect to that position, Gambhir stated, “If Rohit is not available, we have got (Abhimanyu) Easwaran and KL (Rahul) in Australia. We will take a call.”
Former Australian batsman Ricky Ponting had earlier expressed that he was confident Jasprit would be able to play both as the leading pacer for the Indian squad and as the captain of the side.
“Yeah, that (captaincy) is probably the hardest thing for him. I think that was always the question on Pat Cummins when he became the Australian Test captain as well,” Ponting had said during the ICC Review podcast.
