Sanjay Manjrekar has urged the India selectors to move on from Rohit Sharma in ODI cricket.
Rohit was named in the India squad for the upcoming ODI series against Afghanistan. But his availability was made subject to fitness after he missed five IPL matches this season due to a hamstring issue. He marked his return with a 44-ball 84, but didn’t cross 25 in the other four league games. He also aggregated only 61 runs in three ODIs against New Zealand earlier this year.
Manjrekar feels that with the veteran’s fitness remaining an issue and his recent form not quite up to the mark, the selectors should have gone to the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sai Sudharsan instead for the Afghanistan series, keeping next year’s World Cup in mind.
Manjrekar: What is the logic behind picking Rohit Sharma?
“Sai Sudharsan has got three fifties in his four innings (two fifties in three innings) batting at the top of the order for India,” Manjrekar told Sportstar. “Yashasvi Jaiswal’s last innings is 116 not out. And yet, these guys are not playing for India. Instead, the selectors have gone with a veteran whose fitness is a question mark and who is clearly out of form. Now explain that to me. What is the logic behind it? What is the vision?
“If they were compelled to pick Rohit Sharma for whatever reason, the first thing they’ve got to do is pick up the phone and talk to Jaiswal and apologise, because this is a young player who’s done tremendous things at the toughest level, in Test cricket. He’s just 24 years old, in his prime, with a bright future ahead, same with Sai Sudharsan.”
Jaiswal scored an unbeaten 116 in his last ODI appearance, against South Africa in December 2025, when he was picked in captain Shubman Gill’s spot, who was then nursing a neck issue. He made the squad for the following series against New Zealand but didn’t get a game.
Sudharsan, on the other hand, received his maiden international call-up in 2023 for a three-ODI series against South Africa, where he scored two fifties in three games while opening the batting. He hasn’t played another ODI since, but did make his T20I and Test bows later.
“(Shubman) Gill, Sai Sudharsan, and Jaiswal are tailor-made to be a top three in 50-overs cricket, and you’re not backing them, and you’re going to a Rohit Sharma,” he added. “At least with Virat Kohli, he has a case. It cannot be the chairman of selectors, Ajit Agarkar, believing that this is the right way forward for Indian cricket. I cannot imagine him thinking this is the right way forward.”
“It's just the wrong way to go about it. You've got two younger options who have done well, prime of their career, in good form. I would have gone about it differently but seems like the selectors want to keep the focus on these two guys and give them the best possible deal, which I don't agree with. Virat deserves it, Rohit Sharma doesn't, but I think that's how they're going about it.”
Though Rohit had a sub-par New Zealand series, he was India's second-highest run-getter in ODIs in 2025, with 650 runs in 14 matches at 50, just one run short of Virat Kohli.
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