If you’re a Rohit Sharma fan, the last few days have been stressful. From reports claiming that the selectors had informed him he is no longer in India’s World Cup scheme of things, to the BCCI rubbishing those claims, and finally Rohit responding with a century at Lord’s, it has been quite the roller-coaster ride. But in a major boost for his fans, the final word has come straight from the horse’s mouth. Rohit himself has dismissed all speculation, terming the recent chatter around his future nothing more than noise.
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“Look, my job is with the bat. Come and play, represent my country, represent the team. That’s what I’ve been told since I made my debut, so that’s what I am going to do,” Rohit said in a video uploaded by the BCCI after scoring his 34th ODI ton.
“The noise, since I made my debut, has been there. And [will stay] until I am going to stay here. So, it doesn’t really matter too much. What matters is what I do on the field. Try to contribute to the team’s success. That’s all where my focus is right now. Let the noise be there. If there’s no noise, there’s no fun. My job is inside; their job is outside. That’s how I look at it.”
‘A little disappointed’
While that promises to come as a high sigh of relief, there’s no hiding from the fact that Rohit wasn’t happy with the outcome of the match. India lost by 27 runs and thus the series 1-2 to England. Despite being on track to chase down 388, with Rohit’s century and Kohli’s fifty forging a 21st ODI century partnership, India lost the plot in the final 7-8 overs and went down.
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At the same time, in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit defended India’s pacers, who went for plenty
“A little disappointed with the result because I thought we were playing good cricket, especially how we started in Birmingham. We fell a little short in Cardiff with the bat. I thought we didn’t put enough score on the board. And there, here, again, there was a massive total to chase. We tried everything we could with the bat, but we fell short again. When it comes to bowling, you’ve got to understand that these guys haven’t played a lot of ODI cricket. You’ve got to give them time, but yeah, hopefully we can learn from this game, take it into our stride, make sure when we come across a situation like that, we better ourselves,” added Rohit.