Former India captain Rohit Sharma’s retirement rumours became a talking point during the recently concluded ODI series, before BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia had to confirm that the speculation had no basis in reality. Rohit’s poor start to the series – after back-to-back low scores – made things tough as well. However, R Ashwin refused to believe that the speculation surrounding his retirement was all outside noise, saying that there was more to the rumours as well.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, Ashwin said, “See, when the news of Rohit Sharma’s potential retirement broke. Okay, you call it outside noise. I won’t call it that. There is a saying in Tamil: ‘There is no smoke without fire’. There was fire, but he scored runs. He showed he can do it. In his mind, I don’t think there is any doubt that he can play the 2027 World Cup.”

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“I feel that this is Rohit’s road to a comeback after an injury. If he were in a slightly better state or were more confident, he could have scored 180 and won the match for the team. I felt like Rohit was in really good form,” he further added.

R Ashwin also explained that the BCCI cannot push either Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli out of the team that easily because of what they have done for Team India, as well as the potential backlash it could lead to from their ardent fans.

“They cannot touch Virat and Rohit if they want to play. It is because of their credentials. Rohit has scored almost 12,000 runs; they cannot touch him. The other thing is that they are batters, and if you touch them, they have an army. People come to see them. If you drop them, it will just bring the roof down,” concluded R Ashwin.