India vs England, 5th Test: Rohit Sharma is not yet been ruled out, says Rahul Dravid – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Indian head coach Rahul Dravid has cleared the air on Rohit Sharma saying that the skipper is not yet completely ruled out of the rescheduled Test match against England.

Speaking at the media interaction on Wednesday evening, Dravid said that the right-handed batter is being monitored by the medical team.

Rohit had tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday after a Rapid Antigen Test.

“So the update on Rohit is that he is being monitored by our medical team, he is not yet been ruled out. Obviously, he needs to get the negative test to be available. We will keep monitoring him, we have still got close to 36 hours to go so he will have a test later tonight and one maybe tomorrow morning as well. We will see, it is really up to the medical team and sports science team to decide on that. We will keep monitoring,” Dravid explained.

Earlier there were reports that Jasprit Bumrah will captain the side in absence of Rohit Sharma. Rohit skipped the second innings of the practice match against Leicestershire once he had tested positive. If Bumrah captains, he will be the first fast bowler after Kapil Dev to lead the Indian Test team.

“As to the answer to your next question (whether Bumrah would be captain), I think it is probably better that the communication comes officially from the official sources. I am not sure whether Chetan (Sharma) is but you know, once we have exact clarity on Rohit then I think you will hear from official sources. It is not for me to give out official communication,” Dravid clarified on Bumrah.

Dravid had earlier mocked playing with multiple captains since he took over the coveted role of Indian head coach. India has had a merry-go-round of captains with Kohli stepping down in January 2022 and others getting injured. Dravid has played with six captains so far in his eight-month stint.

When asked if the preparations have been disturbed due to Rohit’s absence Dravid said, “Look, it is what it is. When I took this job, even I would not have predicted that there would be so many captains in the last six to seven months. It happens right, there have been some unfortunate injuries to people. Even here, it is quite unfortunate what has happened to Rahul and Rohit in the last three weeks. Sometimes we have had to balance out the workloads. We just have to react to that.”

Dravid lavished praise on the team and said that despite of changing captains, the team has performed well.

“It is not something that you start off thinking that this is what I want to do, but if the situation arises, you react to it. Despite the number of captains we have had, we have played some good cricket in the last 6-8 months. Yes, obviously the South Africa Test series was the one where I would have certainly liked to win that series after going 1-0 up. Even in that, we were not outplayed. We were very close in those games. Some of our players were also not available for that Test series. We are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that we do not have to deal with these situations. We have to react, we are clear about our communication with people. If something happens, we have our plans and contingency plan.”

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