India captain Rohit Sharma on Saturday confirmed his availability for Mumbai's next Ranji Trophy match against Jammu and Kashmir, but stressed on the need to take time off from a busy calendar amid the clamour for star players' participation in domestic cricket.
Rohit also said that no player takes premier domestic red ball tournament for granted. Mumbai will play Jammu and Kashmir at the MCA-BKC Ground when the Ranji Trophy resumes on January 23.
Asked about his availability for the game during a press conference at the BCCI Headquarters here, Rohit responded in the positive. The India skipper then added, "Last 6-7 years, if you look at our calendar, we haven't been sitting home for 45 days when cricket is going on. You do get time when IPL finishes when nothing happens after that."
"Our domestic season begins in October, ends till March. Guys who are not playing all formats and when there's domestic cricket happening, they can play. "For me personally, Since I've started playing Test cricket regularly since 2019, you hardly get time. When you play international cricket regularly, you need time off, just to refresh. Nobody takes it for granted."
The 37-year-old Rohit, who has ruled out Test retirement despite managing one fifty in his last 15 innings in the format, trained with the Mumbai squad at the Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday ahead of the second phase of the Ranji Trophy.
India dropped their woefully out-of-form captain for the final Test in Australia at SCG after he failed as an opener, his usual role, as well as a middle-order batter.
