Muttiah Muralitharan, a former Sri Lankan off-spinner, has encouraged Rohit Sharma to participate in the 2024 T20 World Cup, which will be held in the West Indies and the United States. The 51-year-old believes Rohit Sharma’s strike rate is not a concern, but emphasized the need of remaining healthy.
With India failing to win the 2023 World Cup, rumors of Rohit Sharma’s retirement from T20Is have circulated. The right-hander has a dismal record in T20 World Cups, scoring 963 runs in 36 innings and striking at 127.89.
In an interview to promote the release of his biography ‘800,’ Muttiah Muralitharan stated that the Indian skipper is still young and sees no reason why he can’t compete in the 2024 T20 World Cup. He stated:
“You look at his ODI World Cup performance. The starts he gave, the kind of strike rates he batted at. He never failed in the tournament. And he’s only 36, that’s young. He can play another World Cup if he pushes his fitness like Virat. Rohit batted with a strike rate of 130 in ODIs, which is not bad for T20. He’s an experienced player. You just have to work harder on your fitness after 35. If the desire is there, he’ll play. I think he’ll definitely play another World Cup. It’s on his mind.”
Muttiah Muralitharan
The right-handed hitter ended the 2023 World Cup as the second-highest run-getter, averaging nearly 50 runs in 11 innings. Throughout the tournament, he was the driving force behind Team India’s powerful beginnings.
Rohit Sharma’s emotional words after India’s 2023 World Cup final loss
After being defeated by Australia in the 2023 World Cup final, the 36-year-old criticized his team’s lack of runs but praised Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne for being calm. During the post-match presentation, he stated:
“The result has not gone our way. We were not good enough today. We tried everything but it wasn’t supposed to be. 20-30 runs more would have been good, KL and Kohli were stitching a good partnership and we were looking at 270-280 but we kept losing wickets. When you have 240 on the board, you want to take wickets but credit to Head and Labuschagne who stitched together a big partnership and put us completely out of the game.”
Rohit Sharma
In the final, Travis Head hit 137 to help Australia chase down 241 with six wickets to spare.