Rohit Sharma Likely To Miss Australia Tests, Team-Management Wants Shreyas Iyer As Replacement: Report

Rohit Sharma is reportedly set to miss the action in the upcoming Test series against Australia due to the hamstring injury he had sustained in IPL 2020. India are scheduled to play three ODIs, three T20Is and four Tests in Australia. Rohit Sharma was initially not named in any of the three squads when the BCCI announced the team last month.

The batsman was nursing a hamstring injury and the selectors decided against including him in the squads. He, however, returned to action soon for Mumbai Indians and was later included in the Test squad. The right-handed batsman was not included in the limited-overs squad as a precautionary measure.

The batsman is currently undergoing rehab at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.  However, he is unlikely to be a part of the Test squad in Australia. According to a report in Mumbai Mirror, neither he nor pacer Ishant Sharma have achieved satisfactory level of fitness to be allowed to join the team in Australia.

Even if Rohit Sharma achieves the fitness before the Test series which starts on December 17, he needs to do it quickly because of the mandatory 14-day quarantine rules. But as per the report, he is nowhere close to regaining full fitness and is very much likely to miss the series Down Under.

The replacement:

According to a report in InsideSport, the team-management wants Shreyas Iyer as replacement if Rohit Sharma is ruled out. Shreyas Iyer is already in Australia for the limited-overs series. The right-handed batsman is yet to make his debut in the longest format of the game but has a good record in first-class cricket.

In 54 first-class games so far, Shreyas Iyer has scored 4,592 runs at an average of more than 52 with the help of 12 centuries and 23 fifties. Meanwhile, India would be also without their captain Virat Kohli for the last three Tests in Australia. Kohli would return home after the first Test to be at the birth of his first child.

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