New Delhi, March 12 Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting believes that Rohit Sharma not looking to retire from ODIs means he has a specific goal of playing the 2027 Men’s ODI World Cup.
Rohit clinched his second ICC title as India captain when the side beat New Zealand by four wickets to win 2025 ICC Champions Trophy in Dubai. There were rumours doing the rounds of Rohit retiring from ODIs just the way he called it quits from the T20I format after winning the World Cup in Barbados last year.
But the skipper, who top-scored with 76 to take the Player of the Final award, quashed all those talks after winning the Champions Trophy. “When you start getting to that point of your career, everyone's waiting for you to retire.”
“And I don't know why, when you can still play as well as he's played (in the final), I think he was just trying to put those questions to bed once and for all and say, ‘no, I'm still playing well enough. I love playing in this team. I love leading this team.’ And I think, the fact that he said that, to me, it means that he must have that goal in mind of playing in the next (50-over) World Cup (in 2027),” said Ponting on The ICC Review show.
Rohit had led India to the 2023 Men’s ODI World Cup final on home soil, but suffered a heart-breaking six-wicket defeat at the hands of the Pat Cummins-led Australia in the title clash at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
Ponting believes that a sense of unfinished business may have to do with Rohit’s decision to stay at the helm of the Indian team until the 2027 ODI World Cup, to be hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
“I think probably the fact that they lost the last one and he was captain, that might be the thing that's playing on the back of his mind. Just have one more crack at trying to win the T20 World Cup, the Champions Trophy, and the ODI World Cup. I mean, when you see him play like he played in the Champions Trophy final, you wouldn't say that his time is up just yet,” he concluded.
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