‘I’m Not Going To Step Aside’: Rohit Sharma Shuts Down His Retirement Rumours

India’s skipper Rohit Sharma said that he will not be retiring anytime soon. His statement came after the skipper opted out from the fifth and final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia in Sydney. As per Rohit, he "stood down" to be precise.

"I stood down, that is what I would say," Rohit told Star Sports. The Indian skipper dissected why he did not take part in the fifth Test against Australia. He said that he spoke to head coach Gautam Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar about his thought process.

"The chat that I had with coach and selectors was that I'm not scoring runs, we need players in form. Simple fact: you can't carry out-of-form players for too long. It was my duty to inform the coach and selector about my thoughts. They said, 'You've been playing for a long time, you take the call'. It was a difficult choice but for the team's sake it was the right decision to take the team forward. I took the decision after coming to Sydney. We just got two days, one was New Year's, didn't want to tell the selectors about this during the New Year. I tried a lot but nothing was happening so it was important for me to step aside," he said.

"The decision is not to retire. I'm not going to step aside (as captain). I have decided to step aside from this Test because I'm not scoring (enough runs). There is no guarantee that I won't score runs after two months or five months. I have seen things happen like this many times. But at the same time, I've also got to be realistic," he added.

Australia Squad: Pat Cummins (C), Alex Carey (WK), Usman Khawaja, Nathan McSweeney, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Scott Boland.

India Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Reddy, Ravichandran Ashwin, Akash Deep, Jasprit Bumrah(vc), Mohammed Siraj, Sarfaraz Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Washington Sundar, Abhimanyu Easwaran.