Team India registered a comprehensive ODI series win over Australia last week and would be aiming at a clean-sweep victory when both sides meet in the third and final match of the series on Wednesday. India’s star batting duo of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma also make a return for the final ODI in Rajkot; this would be India’s final bit of bilateral action before the side turns its focus on the World Cup, with warm-ups against England and Netherlands before the start of tournament proper.
Prior to the game on Wednesday, Rohit participated in Team India’s practice session. He batted in the nets alongside other players, and after the session, he shared a fairly humorous moment with spinner Amit Mishra. The 40-year-old is a member of JioCinema’s broadcasting staff, and during a live practice session that was being streamed, Rohit joined the experts and discussed the team’s game preparations.
When Rohit saw Mishra, he said, “Aakh kyun laal hai aapka? (What’s with your red eyes? And when Mishra admitted that he hadn’t slept at all the previous night, everyone, including the spinner, was perplexed by Rohit’s response. “Kya dedication hai. You didn’t have this much devotion on the field, Itna commitment toh aapka udhar bhi nahi tha. The spinner never played under him, Rohit said, to which Mishra responded, amusingly, “Tune kabhi bulaaya hi nahi (You never called me!)
In the 2023 Indian Premier League, Amit Mishra represented the Lucknow Super Giants. He claimed seven wickets in seven games for the team the previous year. But since 2017, when he last represented India in a T20I match against England, the spinner has not been considered for international selection. In 2019, he made his final List A appearance for Haryana.
Meanwhile, Axar Patel’s injury status was not specifically mentioned by Indian captain Rohit Sharma during the press conference on Tuesday, but Sharma expressed satisfaction with Ravichandran Ashwin’s performance in the first two ODIs, suggesting Ashwin could be a solid fallback option for the World Cup in the event of an emergency.