Shubman Gill breaks silence on Rohit Sharma’s ODI future: ‘It’s a good kind of headache’

Rohit Sharma (BCCI Photo) TimesofIndia.com in Chennai: With Yashasvi Jaiswal scoring his second century in the last three ODIs, pressure is mounting on the selectors to decide the future of veteran Rohit Sharma. Despite surviving a jittery start in the third ODI, the 39-year-old went on to score an impressive 79 and put on 170 runs for the opening wicket with Yashasvi Jaiswal.Rohit, given a reprieve at the start of his innings, took Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan to the cleaners before being dismissed. In the three-match series, he has scores of 16, 48 and 79. But is it enough to book him a place on the upcoming England tour? And if so, where does that leave the 24-year-old who, despite his stop-start ODI career, has been in superb form, looking to maximize every opportunity he gets? “It’s a good kind of headache when all your players are performing,” captain Shubman Gill told reporters when asked about India’s opening combination for the upcoming England tour.“The squad will be announced either tomorrow or in the next few days, so we’ll look at the squad and then put out the best England XI.”Asked where Jaiswal is, if everyone is fit, Gill said: “We will have to see how everyone’s fitness is. If everyone is fit, as I said, then we will formulate the best possible XI based on that.”However, the captain was particularly laudatory of Jaiswal and termed it “unfortunate” that he was not given the long rope in ODIs.“We all know he’s a phenomenal player. It’s not easy for any player because when they’re all available, unfortunately sometimes he’s the one who’s missing,” Gill said.“Since Virat bhai was not available in this series, he got a chance to play a few games and he played really well today. Hopefully he will continue this form and grab the opportunities he gets.”“I think a lot of boxes are ticked,” he told broadcasters at the post-match presentation.“We talked about keeping the intensity going in the middle overs and one of the things we also discussed was how can we continue to create opportunities in the middle overs as a bowling unit and as a batting unit, how can we keep pushing for more runs in the middle overs.“When we go to England, the conditions will be a bit more like what we have in South Africa. Not quite the same, but still close. So the kind of combination we’d like to play there, hopefully with all the players fit and ready, should make it another great series for us,” he said.