India’s former captain Rohit Sharma’s future was discussed in the review meeting on September 3. After the meeting with head coach Gautam Gambhir, ODI and Test captain Shubman Gill and T20I captain Shreyas Iyer, Centre of Excellence (CoE) head VVS Laxman, Saikia revealed that Rohit will continue to play and is not retiring anytime soon. He dismissed all rumours surrounding his retirement weeks ahead of the home ODI series against West Indies.
"Rohit Sharma is playing superbly in all matches. What more do you want? In the last match, he scored 130-140 runs. So why is there speculation? I do not want to give fodder to the speculators,” Saikia told the reporters after the meeting.
In the meeting, it was also decided that there will be no Director of Cricket operations post. Interestingly, chief selector Ajit Agarkar was not in attendance, not even virtually.
When did Rohit's retirement rumours surface?
The reports/rumours of Rohit's retirement surface before the third and final ODI of the series against England at Lord's. Even in the commentary box, former head coach Ravi Shastri and others talked about the possibility of him hanging the boots. But, Rohit slammed 138 runs in an unsuccessful run chase after England set a target of 388.
Even then, BCCI secretary Saikia had dismissed rumours of the 39-year-old Rohit retiring from the only format he is actively playing.
"Rohit is a regular member of the Indian ODI team, and he will continue to represent the country as long as he is in the scheme of things. In other words, the Lord's ODI won't be his last match," he had said on July 17.
Big names set to miss ODI series vs West Indies
India's squad for ODI series against West Indies starting September 27. The squad for the ODI series is yet to be announced. The selectors will be forced to make changes to the squad as a few ODI players are part of the Shreyas Iyer-led T20I team for Asian Games 2026 in Japan. Apart from Iyer, Jasprit Bumrah, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ishan Kishan, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh and Axar Patel are part of the T20I squad.