Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Former greats Ravi Shastri and Australian great Ricky Ponting have shared their thoughts and said that one cant write off great players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. “Only time will tell whether the duo will still be around. When you come back from a long layoff, you are obviously going to be rusty,” Shastri said on The ICC Review. “It’s not easy for any overseas team to land in Australia, say, two days prior to a game in Perth and adjust to those conditions straight away, especially when you have that extra bounce and against quality fast bowlers.
“But I think only time will tell. They’ll go to Adelaide, they have some time off to get into the nets, get their minds sorted and get back into action. So I’m in no hurry to judge, but it’s when you come back at that age, after some time, it’s about how much you’re enjoying the sport and how much hunger is there and passion is left in you to play the game.”
Ponting echoed similar sentiments and believes Kohli in particular will be targeting some short-term goals during the Australian tour that will help him decide whether to keep playing on. “The one thing I don’t like hearing from anyone is that ‘I’ve achieved everything in the game’ because I think you still have to have some really short-term goals and not just be hanging on to try and get through to the 2027 World Cup,” Ponting said. “Virat’s always been a highly motivated person. And I’d like to think that he’s probably sat down and even just given himself some goals and things that he can achieve in this series here in Australia and not be just waiting and killing time for that next World Cup to come around. Ponting added, “ What we know with both of those guys, at their absolute best, yes, of course they’re in India’s best team. But can they find their best between now and when that World Cup rocks around? And that’s only an answer that, like Ravi said, that we’ll find out in a short period of time.”
