Rohit will retire after 2027 World Cup, claims his coach:Lad recalls his transforming from spinner to batter, says Sharma focuses on lifting championship title

On Sunday, November 30, India defeated South Africa by 17 runs in an exciting first ODI played in Ranchi. In this match, Rohit Sharma broke Pakistani all-rounder Shahid Afridi’s world record of 351 sixes. He has achieved the milestone of hitting the most sixes in ODI cricket. During this time, Rohit Sharma’s coach Dinesh Lad visited Surat. During his visit to Surat, Dinesh Lad discussed everything from Rohit Sharma’s cricket career to retirement in his interaction with the media. He also mentioned that Rohit Sharma will only retire after taking the 2027 World Cup in his hands. Conversation with Dinesh Lad (Rohit Sharma’s Coach) Question: How do you view Rohit Sharma’s cricketing career? Answer: Yes, I certainly coached Rohit Sharma, but Rohit Sharma became who he is because of his talent, not because of me. I just had a vision for him. For instance, when I first saw him, he was 12 years old and I saw him as an off-spin bowler. But when I noticed his batting ability, I told him to focus more on batting. Because even in his childhood, I could see his technique. So I let him focus more on batting and due to his inherent talent, he has reached the position where he is today, which you all know. ‘Rohit’s biggest plus point is that he takes players along with him’ As far as his captaincy is concerned, he does captaincy very well. His biggest plus point is that he takes his players along with him. He knows what to extract from which player. Whether it’s a bowler, he knows how to encourage the bowler by saying you are my main bowler, you can take good wickets. So he has been doing this from the beginning. Even in school cricket when he was leading in my school, there was equality. Because I hadn’t told him much, he was making decisions on his own. Coach Dinesh Lad gave example of school match
Let me give you a simple example, when we were playing a school match and we were chasing 240 runs, we had lost 4 wickets for 30 runs. At that time I sent him a message saying, Rohit, whatever happens, he said no, no, tell sir that I will win the match. He won the match with his hard work. Strong start… stays positive from the beginning. He knew what potential I had inside me, what I should do. How to do justice to my cricket. He did justice to his cricket well and became a top-level cricketer. Question: How do you view cricket as it exists today? Answer: Look, current cricket is good. Cricket is not bad. Due to cricket, a lot of money has also come into cricket today. So you can see cricket as a profession, not just that, but fortunately having talent is very important in it. For example, as I said, I didn’t make Rohit Sharma, he had talent, he did justice to his talent and became a good cricketer. So I want to tell every player that do justice to your talent, stay focused, remain disciplined towards your talent, only then you can become a good cricketer. ‘I would tell today’s cricketers to strengthen their foundation’
Today’s children are focusing more on T-20, rather than strengthening their foundation. So I would say strengthen your foundation. If you strengthen your foundation and have talent, you can become a good level cricketer. This should be the goal. You shouldn’t think about just batting and hitting, but should think about how I will bat on the wicket, this should be the focus. Question: Will you give any advice to Rohit Sharma about retirement, will he retire from ODIs in 2027? Answer: I haven’t given any advice, but I also feel that Rohit himself feels that he has seen the T20 World Cup in his hands. He wasn’t there in the 2011 World Cup. He felt that his selection didn’t happen at that time. After that, he worked very hard and reached a position. So he wants to see the World Cup, the 50-over World Cup in his hands. So he will only take retirement after holding the 2027 World Cup. Question: Commonwealth Games are going to be held in India, what would you say if it happens in Ahmedabad, Gujarat? Answer: It’s great that Commonwealth Games are happening here and going to be held in Ahmedabad. I will give credit for this to PM Narendra Modi because from the beginning he had the mindset to encourage sports. He also gave the slogan “If India plays, India will grow”. ‘I will give credit for Commonwealth Games to PM only’ His only point is that today’s children are getting diverted to wrong places. They are paying more attention to mobile phones, so his point was that the more children come to the ground, the more their mindset will change. So due to talent, children will bring glory to the country’s name as well as their own name. It’s very good that Commonwealth Games are happening in the country, so I would like to say again that I will give credit only to the PM.