Sydney, Jan 03, 2025, IANS

Sydney, Jan 3 (IANS) Australia cricketing great Ricky Ponting feels the path for Rohit Sharma to play Tests again will be a long and difficult one after the regular Indian skipper opted to rest from the ongoing fifth Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday. Rohit has averaged just 6.2 from the three Tests he played against Australia with the highest score of 10. Speculation around him not playing at Sydney emerged after head coach Gautam Gambhir refused to term him as a guaranteed starter in the pre-match press conference. Rohit had already bid farewell to T20Is after captaining India to the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2024 triumph. “I think the reaction has been that they all sort of expected that it might happen. The chat's been for the last couple of days that everyone expected that Rohit would not play this game, that Shubman Gill would come back in and that (Jasprit) Bumrah would probably take over the captaincy again and that's the way it's turned out.” “You'd think it's probably a long way back for Rohit Sharma now in this format of the game. India don't play a Test match, I believe, until the middle or late June, which is a long way away when you're sort of coming to the back end of your career.” “I think he's been a terrific player for India so with those sort of guys, you wish them all the best and hope to see them back out there again, but as I said, I think it will be a long - and probably difficult road - back for him,” said Ponting to the ICC Review show at the SCG. He also pondered the thoughts behind the word ‘opted out’ being used for Rohit not playing the Sydney Test coming from the Indian team camp. “I was very surprised when I heard the term ‘opting out’ coming into such an important game. We know he's been a great stalwart for Indian cricket over a long period of time.” “So the way that they've actually worded it, you can only take it on face value. We've got to believe what we're hearing coming out of the Indian camp, but being such a big game, knowing that they have to win this one to retain the trophy, it was an interesting time for one of their more experienced players to opt out,” concluded Ponting.