Rohit Sharma Makes Retirement Stance Clear With Big World Cup, WTC Final Remark
Aged 36 and still going strong, Rohit Sharma made his stance on retirement clear.
India captain Rohit Sharma is fully focused on the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season with the Mumbai Indians. With the captaincy responsibility in the T20 league off his shoulders, Rohit is purely looking to enhance his skills as a batter, especially with the T20 World Cup set to take place in June this year. Rohit, who is 36 years old at present, however, has also seen talks about potential retirement hovering around him. But, as far as the Hitman is concerned, retirement isn't something that he has in his mind at the moment, with there still being hunger to win big events for India. (IPL 2024 Points Table)
In a chat on 'Breakfast With Champions', Rohit touched upon the retirement topic, saying he is still motivated to win the World Cup for India, and potentially the ICC World Test Championship final.
"I haven't really thought about retirement. But, I don't know where life takes you. I am still playing well at this point in time - so I am thinking I am going to continue for a few more years and then, I don't know. I really want to win the World Cup and there is a WTC final in 2025, hopefully India makes it," said Rohit on the show.
Rohit also spoke about India's ODI World Cup 2023 heartbreak where India were beaten by Australia in the final. Unbeaten in the entire tournament, Rohit's India suffered a surprising defeat against Pat Cummins' men to once again return from an ICC event empty-handed.
"50-over World Cup for me is the actual World Cup. We've grown up watching that World Cup. More importantly, it was happening in India in front of our home crowd. We played so well up until that final. When we won the semi-finals, I thought, now we're just a step away. We're doing all the things right."
"What's the one thing that can make us lose the World Cup? Not a single thing came to my mind. Because I thought we ticked all the boxes, we were playing good cricket. Confidence was there."
"We were all supposed to have one bad day and that I guess that was our bad day. Don't think we played bad cricket in that final, certain things didn't go our way. But Australia were slightly better than us," said Rohit.
India Cricket Team
Rohit Sharma
Mumbai Indians