When India and Australia play their second ODI in Adelaide, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will be hoping for a better experience than they had in the first of the three-match series. Rohit was out after only eight runs and Kohli fell for a duck.
Additionally, these scores came amid criticism of the older players' status in the team since that they have retired from Test and T20Is, and this was their first international participation in more than seven months. It's unclear if Kohli and Rohit can return to their peak performance in this series, but former Australia captain Ricky Ponting stated that they would be assured a place in any Indian side at their best.
“The one thing I don’t like hearing from anyone is that ‘I’ve achieved everything in the game’ because I think you still have to have some really short-term goals and not just be hanging on to try and get through to the 2027 World Cup,” Ponting said on ICC Review.
“Virat’s always been a highly motivated person. And I’d like to think that he’s probably sat down and even just given himself some goals and things that he can achieve in this series here in Australia and not be just waiting and killing time for that next World Cup to come around.
“What we know with both of those guys, at their absolute best, yes, of course they’re in India’s best team. But can they find their best between now and when that World Cup rocks around? And that’s only an answer that… that we’ll find out in a short period of time (during the series),” said Ponting.
Around the same time last year and this year, Rohit and Kohli announced their retirements from T20Is and Test matches, respectively. After leading India to the 2024 T20 World Cup championship with a player of the match performance in the final, Kohli first declared the end of his T20I career. Then, team captain Rohit also stated that his last Twenty20 International was the thrilling final match against South Africa.
Then, in Australia, both players had to face a disappointing Test series. During five innings, Rohit in particular only managed a pitiful 31 runs. However, Kohli only managed to score 90 more runs in the eight innings he played after scoring a century early in the series – an unbeaten 100 in Perth.
Shubman Gill took over as captain of the squad when Rohit first declared his retirement from Test cricket on May 7. On May 12, Kohli then declared that his Test career was over. As a result, Rohit and Kohli are now solely involved in One-Day Internationals (ODIs), which are more infrequently played in international cricket than the other two formats.
