Rohit was not chosen for Australia tour due to injury sustained in IPL, but he played for MI recently.
Former Indian cricketer and BCCI selection committee chief Dilip Vengsarkar slammed Rohit Sharma for turning up for Mumbai Indians in their last IPL 2020 league game against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Tuesday (November 3) despite being declared injured by the BCCI.
Rohit and his injury have been a hot topic among the cricket fraternities and fans ever since he was not named in all three squads for India’s upcoming tour of Australia later this month due to the hamstring injury.
Well, soon after the squads' announcement, the MI captain was seen hitting the nets, leading to a lot of criticism of BCCI selectors over his non-selection for the Australia tour with many questioning BCCI’s move and approach in handling the opener’s injury during the ongoing IPL 2020 in UAE.
However, BCCI maintained that they are monitoring Rohit’s injury closely and will take a call accordingly, the 33-year-old stunned all by deciding to return to MI XI against SRH in Sharjah on Tuesday after missing three IPL 13 matches because of an apparent grade 2 hamstring tear.
Rohit said his hamstring is “absolutely fine” – which has yet again sparked a debate whether BCCI already knows the extent of his injury while some criticizing the batsman for opting to play despite having not been declared fit to play as there is no official announcement regarding the same.
Now, Vengsarkar questioned BCCI what action will the board take regarding the matter while slamming Rohit for prioritizing IPL over national duty.
Vengsarkar told Times of India: “It's intriguing that Rohit Sharma, the most accomplished batsman of Team India, who was only a few days ago declared unfit to tour Australia by the Indian team's physio (Nitin Patel) and hence not selected for the trip, is playing and leading MI in the IPL.”
He concluded, “Now, the question here is, is the IPL more important to him than playing for India? Is the club more important than playing for the nation for him? Will the BCCI take a call on this? Or is it that the BCCI physio faltered in diagnosing Rohit's injury correctly.”
India will tour Australia for a full series after the IPL final next week and Rohit, who has a stunning white ball record in Australia, will be missed. The Mumbai batsman has four hundreds in ODIs against Australia in Australia and has scored 990 runs in 19 matches at a strike rate of 90.99. In T20Is, he has 181 runs in nine games.