Delhi: Former India head coach Ravi Shastri has recently made a big statement. He believes that if he was still a coach, he would not stop Rohit Sharma from playing Sydney Test against Australia earlier this year. Rohit announced retirement from Test cricket last week. He scored 4301 runs in 67 Tests at an average of 40.57, including 12 centuries. His best score was 212 runs.

Rohit was the captain of the Test team since 2022. He led India in 24 Tests, winning 12. Apart from this, India was also runner -up in the 2023 World Test Championship final.

However, Rohit’s form was not going well for the last few months. He could cross 50 runs only once in the domestic series against Bangladesh and New Zealand. During this time his average was around 10.93. Due to the birth of the son, he did not play the Perth Test, but returned to the remaining three Tests and could only score 31 runs. He did not play Sydney Test in January due to poor form, which was the last match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Shastri’s clear opinion on Rohit

Ravi Shastri said that he had met Rohit during an IPL match and told him that, “If I were a coach, you must have played that last Test match. The series was not over. The score of 2-1 is not like losing for me.”

He also said that Sydney’s pitch was quite challenging at that time and 35-40 runs could also change the attitude of the match. Shastri said, “If Rohit had played and he scored, the series might have ended at par. He is a player who can change the match in any situation. I was knocking in my heart for a long time, so I told him.”