Indian captain Rohit Sharma recently announced his retirement from Test matches, ahead of the BCCI’s announcement of its squad for the five-match Test series in England. Rohit’s absence means India will certainly have a new captain in the upcoming series. While many believe Rohit’s retirement will significantly impact the Indian team, former South African cricketer Daryll Cullinan disagrees.
In an interview with the Hindustan Times, Cullinan, who previously labelled Rohit a ‘flat track bully’, said that the former India captain’s retirement was long overdue and that his absence from the Test series against England would not be too much of a loss for India.
“Rohit’s retirement was probably long overdue in terms of test cricket away from India. Let’s be honest about it. He hasn’t really been the player that he throughout his career has been at home and we saw reluctance from him in recent Australian series to really take it on and lead from the front. So I don’t see that as being a loss for India at all,” Cullilan told HT.
Can India win the Test series against England?
Cullilan, however, does have hopes from the young Indian players who will take the spotlight during the England series. Notably, India have not defeated England even once since 2007 and the closest they came was during the last series in 2021/22 which was eventually tied at 2-2.
“India definitely have a realistic chance if all their bowlers are fit and they’re able to see through the series. They’re always going to be in with a chance. Ability to bowl teams out and there’s depth in India’s batting,” Cullilan added.
Cullilan has played 70 matches for South Africa, scoring 4,554 runs at an average of 44.21 in a career with 20 half centuries and 14 centuries.
Notably, BCCI had recently announced the India A squad for the England series with a number of young guns in the side, including Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Ishan Kishan and Tushar Deshpande.
