Present perfect, future... Rohit out of Tests, may need surgery for thigh injury
FIGHTING ON Opener retained for the Test series againt England, set to play the November 9 opener
MUMBAI: Just when it seemed that Rohit Sharma was settling down in his sputtering Test career, a major injury has dealt him a big setback, ruling him out of the England series. An upper thigh injury has ruled out the middleorder batsman for the entire five-match series starting in Rajkot on November 9.
“Unfortunately, we have all seen on TV that Rohit Sharma is badly injured (right thigh muscle tendon) and there is a scope of surgical intervention. He is going to be assessed in London and if required he might have to undergo surgery. He will be out of the Test series,” chairman of selectors MSK Prasad said after the committee’s meeting in Mumbai on Wednesday.
“In case he doesn’t require a surgical intervention, (still) he could be out for six to eight weeks. If it’s required, it could be more.”
Rohit, 29, injured his right quadriceps while batting in the final ODI against New Zealand in Visakhapatnam on Saturday. He continued to bat despite the stress injury and that could have aggravated the condition.
“He was finding it difficult to run, so we had asked him to go for his shots,” skipper MS
Dhoni was quoted as saying after
India wrapped up the five-match series 3-2 with an emphatic 190-run win in that game.
Prasad explained the nature of the injury. “It’s somewhere close to the hip. It’s in the upper thigh region (of the right leg),” he said. MV Sridhar, BCCI’s GM-cricket operations, added: “The thigh muscle tendon has been injured for which he will be assessed by specialists (in England).”
The injury could not have come at a worse time for Rohit, who has faced heavy criticism for not justifying his selection to the Test squad. He was coming into his own in the New Zealand Test series, scoring half centuries in each of the three Tests. In the ODIs too, he was repeatedly being dismissed after getting his eye in before scoring the matchwinning 70 in Vizag.
“I was getting starts, but was playing only about 20 balls. My job at the top of the order is very important from the team’s perspective. It is important I bat as long as possible. I try and do that every time. I was a little bit disappointed with the way I batted in the first four games. In the final game, I was happy to put some runs on the board and help the team set the target of 270 runs,” he told bcci.tv after the
series.