Gautam Gambhir refuses to confirm Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for England tour: 'I'm not selector, there are 5 others…'
India head coach Gautam Gambhir refused to confirm Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for the upcoming England tour, saying he is not the selector.
India head coach Gautam Gambhir refused to confirm the names of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for the upcoming England tour, saying he is not the selector and he only picks the XI once the squad is chalked out. Gambhir's next big assignment is the upcoming five-Test series against England, beginning June 20. Having lost back-to-back series against New Zealand and Australia, the England tour might just be make or break for Gambhir in terms of being the Test coach.
Both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have had underwhelming returns with the bat in the longest format and the duo had a disastrous tour of Australia. Kohli scored 190 runs in 9 innings, including a century in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy opener in Perth.
On the other hand, Rohit Sharma's performance was so bad that he had to stand down from the last Test in Sydney. However, during the last Border-Gavaskar Trophy match, Rohit famously remarked that he was going nowhere, and the decision to miss the Sydney match was taken, keeping the team in mind.
However, just one month before the England tour, Gambhir's answer left a lot of ambiguity, and one cannot really know what will happen next when the selectors meet to pick the team for England.
“The job of the coach is not selection, it is the job of the selectors to select. The public should know, that the selectors select, and the coach, only from that squad, selects 11 players to play the match,” Gambhir said while speaking on the ABP News Summit.
“So, this perception that the coach is the selector is not true. Neither was the coach before me a selector nor am I a selector. Five selectors are selected when they come here. If you had called them, they would have given you a better answer to this question,” he added.
‘Virat and Rohit can play the 2027 World Cup’
Gambhir, who recently oversaw India's Champions Trophy-winning campaign also stated that both Rohit and Virat can play the 2027 ODI World Cup if they are performing well. He also stated that age is no barrier if there are consistent performances coming from the bat.
“Till the time they are performing, they are absolutely, they should be part of it. When you start, and when you finish, that is your individual decision. Neither is there a coach, nor is there a chairman, nor is there a selector,” said Gambhir.
“You keep performing; whether you are 40 or 45, keep playing till 40; no one has stopped you. 2027 World Cup is their decision, their performance is more important than that. You can only select their performance in the team. You saw the Champions Trophy, how they performed, what can I tell you, the world has seen it, the country has seen, how they have performed,” the head coach added.
In the Champions Trophy, Virat Kohli was among India's leading run-getters. He scored a century against Pakistan and a crucial 84-run knock against Australia in the semi-final.
On the other hand, Rohit Sharma constantly gave India flying starts and his best came in the final against New Zealand, where he scored 76 runs off 83 balls.
