Sydney, Oct 26 (IANS) Senior India opener Rohit Sharma said he will give a lot of credit to the extended preparation he had before coming on the ODI tour of Australia, which culminated in him hitting a match-winning 121 in the nine-wicket win in the third and final ODI at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Having retired from Tests and T20Is, it meant Rohit hadn’t got much game time behind him, especially after not playing a game post IPL 2025 campaign for the Mumbai Indians. Ahead of ODIs against Australia, Rohit also lost the ODI captaincy to Shubman Gill.

Rohit spent a lot of time working on his fitness and losing almost 10 kgs in a demanding regime, as well as being on a strict nutrition routine. He also worked on refining his skillsets at the BCCI Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru and under former India assistant coach Abhishek Nayar in his hometown Mumbai.

“Since the time I started playing, I never had four to five months to prepare for a series. So I wanted to utilise that. I wanted to do things on my way, in my own terms, and that actually worked out pretty well for me. Understanding what I need to do for the rest of my career.”

“It was important to utilise that time because, like I said, never had such time in my hand. So I wanted to utilise that time and I prepared pretty well back home. Obviously, the conditions back home and here are not ideal. It’s a massive difference between the two countries, but I’ve come here so many times. So it was just about getting into that rhythm and understanding what I need to do here.”

“So, I give a lot of credit to how I prepped before coming here, giving a lot of time to myself first. That was very important because sometimes you’ve got to understand that there’s so much to do in life besides what you do professionally. But I got a lot of time in my hand, so I utilised that.”

“Like I said, I could do things on my own terms, on my own time, which actually really helped me. Very, very grateful, firstly, to have people standing beside you. I’m pretty grateful to that,” said Rohit, who took Player of the Match award in the third ODI and also got Player of the Series honour, in a video posted on bcci.tv on Sunday.

He also praised the Australian crowds for their consistent support and acknowledged the atmosphere created by fans during the series, in what was also his likely final international appearance in the country.

“Honestly, whenever we’ve played, people have come out and supported, not just the two of us, but the entire team, and that was good to see. In Australia, the crowd never disappoints. They come out in large numbers to watch cricket because two good teams playing, they want to watch quality cricket. That is what you get with these two teams.”

“Unfortunately, like I said, we couldn’t cross the line with the series, but we enjoyed coming here, playing here. Really, really grateful to the crowd for their support throughout Australia. They’ve been superb.”

“I hope they continue to do that. We’ve got a T20I series that is coming up (starting on October 29), and I hope they continue to do that with each one of them who are going to be representing the country. It’s a great occasion, and I wish them the best,” he concluded.

-–IANS

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