INSIDE CRICKET: Sunil Gavaskar is wrong. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli should quit the one-day scene NOW. Hanging on for the 2027 World Cup is selfish and denies these Indian wonderkids time to bed in

‘One last time, signing off from Sydney.’

This was the message that threw one of world cricket’s developing debates back into the spotlight this week.

The words on an Instagram post, accompanying a photograph of himself heading into Kingsford Smith Airport, belonged to Rohit Sharma. Hours earlier, he had struck his 50th international hundred in a dead-rubber win over Australia that also featured an unbeaten 74 from Virat Kohli.

The suggestion that Rohit has played his last cricket in Australia need not be contested, with no further bilateral series on the horizon, but given his age - and that of fellow veteran Kohli - thoughts about his more general future plans are inevitable.

Both men have put their respective Test and Twenty20 careers behind them since June 2024, but intend to stick around on the one-day international scene until the 2027 World Cup when they will be 40 and 39 respectively.

Sure, the appeal of another fairytale ending - after the pair departed the Caribbean as T20 world champions 16 months ago - is as obvious as it is alluring. ‘This is an amazing game, I was telling Rohit today when we went out to bat that one day you feel like you can't get a run, and then you come out and things happen. God is great. I bow my head in gratitude,’ said Kohli, after his man-of-the-match performance in the T20 final victory over South Africa in June last year.

But two years is an awfully long time for sportsmen in the twilight of their careers, and so some took Rohit’s social media message as a precursor to something bigger.

Yes, both players are still making runs at the highest level, although not in the dominant way they once were as Galacticos in an Indian team that has won all three global white-ball tournaments since their debuts.

Rohit is in the top 10 run-scorers of all time in one-day internationals while Kohli, with an average touching 58, is indisputably the best batsman the format has witnessed. But a generation of thrilling new talent is waiting in the wings, and champion limited-overs teams of the past have not featured 40-year-olds at the top of their batting line-ups.

With their unforgiving schedules, ICC tournaments can be physically gruelling, so should India be indulging personal desires for a romantic World Cup sequel?

Sunil Gavaskar, chief cheerleader in a nation of cheerleaders, certainly thinks so, saying this week: ‘Irrespective of what happens between now and then, whether they score runs or not, with the ability and experience they possess, if they are available, they will be certainties in the squad.’

India’s fascination with perfect endings has history. Take the great Sachin Tendulkar for example, who called it a day at the age of 40 in November 2013, after making a record 200th Test appearance.

If timing is everything, though, a point midway through a four-year World Cup cycle represents an opportune juncture for change - allowing the likes of Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma, players who have already enjoyed considerable success in T20 internationals, a sufficient number of matches to bed in ahead of the tournament in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

And if Rohit and Kohli will not move aside voluntarily, perhaps it is time for them to be pushed. Yes, it would be a bold move, but given the abundance of talent coming through and the successful evolution of Indian cricket teams after losing previous icons like Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag, not one without merit. When such a situation involves India, however, it operates on a different level because their A-list cricketers wield infinitely more power than their global rivals. 

Regardless of nationality, though, retirement calls are rarely clear-cut. More often than not ground has to be ceded. Take some signposts from English cricket over the 21st century as examples.

Nasser Hussain scored a match-sealing, unbeaten hundred against New Zealand at Lord’s but was made to see he was raging against the dying of the light by the fluency with which new boy Andrew Strauss played at the other end when he called it quits in 2004.

Another Essex player in Alastair Cook also bowed out with a century - against India at the Oval in 2018 - even though aged 33 he appeared to be saying goodbye with miles left in the tank. Fact was he had scored just one 50 in his previous 16 innings, following a joyless end to his England captaincy, and a player who had never been dropped across a 161-match career was intent on keeping it that way.

Even though he played on and was highly successful at county level for five more years, while a slew of successors struggled at the top of England’s order, it always felt like the right call.

With the benefit of hindsight, the same can be said of Stuart Broad’s decision two years ago. Part of his motivation to bow out at the end of the 2023 Ashes was to leave people thinking he could still do a job.

Equally, though, there was a need for an England team under Ben Stokes to regenerate its bowling attack with added pace for this year’s shot at Australia Down Under, meaning that Jimmy Anderson became collateral in midsummer 2024.

Few would have disputed his retention on merit as England’s new-ball bowler beyond his 42nd birthday at that stage, but this was an example of team management prioritising collective long-term needs over individual aspirations.

It is something India’s selectors should at least consider in the 30 days leading up to their next 50-over series against South Africa.

SMITH IN DANGER OF BEING RUSTY IN PERTH 

A good news flash for England fans: Steve Smith's preparation for the Ashes has been disrupted by violent storms in Brisbane.

A one-time batting obsessive, he returned from six weeks in New York, where he now lives during downtime from cricket, saying: ‘Honestly, it takes me two hits to get sorted.’

But with Queensland taking a battering from wind and rain, the first day of Smith’s return for New South Wales this week was abandoned and more bad weather is forecast across the remainder of the Sheffield Shield contest.

Smith, 36, has not played since late August and hoped to play two first-class matches, starting with this week’s fixture, ahead of the looming first Test in Perth on November 21.

KIWI TICKNER'S TALE WARMS THE HEART

There will not have been a more heartwarming comeback story than that of Blair Tickner, if he features for New Zealand at the back end of England’s limited-overs tour. 

Tickner, 32, an injury replacement for fellow giant fast bowler Kyle Jamieson, returned to the Black Caps squad on Monday for the first time since his wife Sarah was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia during an overseas spell with Derbyshire 18 months ago.

Her chemotherapy journey, scheduled to run until August 2026, has so far featured two sets of hair loss, and reflecting on both his wife’s illness and the family’s pride should he don national colours again, an emotional Tickner was reduced to tears on the eve of the second one-day international in Hamilton.

‘Cricket's obviously not as important as life and she's been there for me,’ he said. ‘We're just happy to be back in New Zealand, and she's healthy.’

Tickner, leading wicket-taker in last year’s Super Smash, the domestic Twenty20 competition in New Zealand, has now been handed a late call-up to his country's T20 World Cup squad. 

That move has led him to be humorously nicknamed 'Stephen Donald' by team-mates. Donald is the All Black who kicked the winning penalty at the 2011 World Cup, despite not being picked in the original squad. The T20 World Cup is now four months away.