Star India batsman Rohit Sharma is set to take part in the upcoming four-match Test series against Australia after passing the fitness test at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.
It has been learned that Sharma, who had injured his hamstring during the Indian Premier League (IPL), cleared the fitness test on Friday and will be leaving for Australia over the weekend. However, an official statement in this regard is yet to come from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
According to a report in ESPNcricinfo, the 32-year-old will take a charter flight from Mumbai to Dubai, from where he will fly to Sydney on December 13 and be available for selection for the last two Tests of the four-match series.
Upon reaching Sydney, Sharma has to undergo a mandatory quarantine of 14 days in a facility separate from the bio-secure bubble in which the Indian Test squad is currently in, the report further stated.
The BCCI had informed about the decision to add Sharma to the squad for the Australia Test series after initially excluding him from the tour due to the hamstring injury.
“The BCCI Medical Team has been monitoring Rohit Sharma’s fitness and has briefed All-India Senior Selection Committee on the same. In consultation with Sharma, it has been decided to rest him for the ODIs and T20Is in Australia to regain full fitness and he has been included in India’s Test squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy,” the BCCI said in a release on November 9.
India captain Virat Kohli, who himself will return to India after the first Test in order to be his wife for the birth of their first child, had said that there had been no clarity on the injury of Sharma.
“Well, before we had the selection meeting with selectors in Dubai, we were told that he (Sharma) 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 traveling with us and after that, the only other information we received on mail is that he is in the NCA and he has been assessed,” he added. The first Test of the four-match series starts at the Adelaide Oval from December 17.
