The veteran Indian pacer, Ishant Sharma has been ruled out of the tour to Australia, as informed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in their press release on Thursday, November 26. Rohit Sharma, who is recovering from a hamstring injury at the NCA, will be next assessed on December 11. His participation in the Test series will be decided only after the assessment. T Natarajan, who was part of India’s T20Isquad has been added to the ODI squad as a back-up for Navdeep Saini, who complained of a back spasm.
In a statement regarding the same, BCCI said, “Ishant has recovered completely from his side strain injury sustained during IPL 2020 in the U.A.E. While he’s building up his workload in order to achieve Test match fitness, Mr Ishant Sharma has been ruled out of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.”
The BCCI release also revealed that Rohit travelled back to India after the conclusion of the IPL 2020 in the UAE to be with his ailing father.
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BCCI’s press release added, “Mr Rohit Sharma had to come back to Mumbai after the IPL to attend his ailing father. His father is now recuperating well and that has allowed him to travel to the NCA and start his rehabilitation.”
However, Ishant has been ruled out of the four-match Test series that begins on December 17 in Adelaide. Earlier, the Indian skipper, Virat Kohli had said the team had been “playing the waiting game” on the status of Rohit’s injury.
Kohli had said, “Before the selection meeting, we got a mail that he is unavailable, that he has picked up an injury during the IPL. It said that the pros and cons of the injury were explained to him and he understood and he was unavailable. After that (the selection meeting) he played in the IPL and we all thought he would be on that flight to Australia and we had no information on why he is not travelling with us. There has been no information.”
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India play three ODIs against Australia starting Friday, November 27, with the first game at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG). The ODI series will be followed by three T20Is and four Tests.
