Former Indian great Harbhajan Singh believes that Virat Kohli, with his supreme fitness, can easily survive the rigors of international cricket for another five years, while Test and ODI captain Rohit Sharma will last at least a few more years. “Rohit can easily play for two more years. You never know with Virat Kohli’s fitness, you can see him competing for five years. He is probably the fittest guy in the team,” Harbhajan told PTI Videos in an exclusive interview . “You ask any 19-year-old competing with Virat (in fitness). Virat will beat him. He’s in good form. I believe Virat and Rohit have a lot of cricket left in them and that’s entirely up to them. Whether they’re in good shape form, they are performing and the team is winning, they should continue to play. It’s as simple as that,” said the man with more than 700 international wickets.
Harbhajan believes Test cricket is a format where you need both.
“Red-ball cricket, you really need these two guys to play a little bit more than what people are asking for. You need experience in all formats, be it limited-overs cricket and Test cricket. You need experienced cricketers to nurture the talent that is emerging.
“Selectors need to see that if someone is not performing well, they should be dropped. Be it senior players or junior players. But as long as everyone is in good form, they should be able to be selected for the team.” He further said: “And if they are not contributing in any way, be it in fitness or number of runs, then the time has come.
“Ultimately, it’s an individual decision and the selectors are there to look at those steps to determine who is capable of performing and at what age. Obviously, they are considering all those factors before picking them.” Harbhajan believes that the youngsters are much hungrier than the senior players as they are yet to establish themselves.
“I have always believed that young people are much hungrier than older people. If you play for 15 years, hunger diminishes a little. ” Harbhajan played down India’s 0-2 defeat to Sri Lanka in the ODIs.
“It was one of those things. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. After all, it’s sport. Every team goes through those periods. You play well, but you still don’t win. I’ll give credit to Sri Lanka. They played well. They they played better than India.”
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