Indian captain Rohit Sharma was seen bowling off-spin for a brief period in the nets ahead of their 2023 World Cup clash against Bangladesh in Pune on Thursday, October 19.
Rohit has been pretty vocal about how he stopped bowling off-spin as it injured his finger and had the potential to affect his batting. However, the veteran opener was seen bowling to Ravindra Jadeja in the nets and induced a fall shot from the southpaw on a couple of occasions.
Here’s a video posted by the BCCI of Rohit fine-tuning his bowling skills in the nets:
Could we see Rohit Sharma bowling against Bangladesh?
Rohit Sharma has eight ODI wickets and a solitary T20I wicket as he used to bowl quite regularly during his early international career. In fact, in many interviews, the opener has claimed that he began his journey as a competitive cricketer being an off-spinner, only for his childhood coach to realize that he could do better with the bat.
He also has an IPL hattrick to his name, making fans wonder why he didn’t carry on working on his bowling. However, in the press conference where India’s World Cup squad was announced, Rohit did hint that the likes of himself and Virat Kohli could ‘roll their arm over’ if needed.
While it seems unlikely that Rohit would bowl against Bangladesh, the fact that he has been practicing in the nets has given fans a ray of hope. They could also then perhaps play Suryakumar Yadav as a finisher if Rohit can trust his own off-spin to do the job whenever needed alongside Hardik Pandya as the fifth bowler.
India’s 2023 World Cup Squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Ishan Kishan (wk), Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami.
Edited by Sudeshna Banerjee
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