India vs Sri Lanka: 'Have not given up on T20I career, says Rohit Sharma

India captain Rohit Sharma has said he has not given up on Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) as yet.

Rohit recently missed India's three-match T20I series against Sri Lanka, which the Men in Blue won under Hardik Pandya's captaincy, due to a finger injury. Rohit had sustained the injury during India's recent tour of Bangladesh.

Following the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia, Hardik has captained India in two T20I series: vs New Zealand and Sri Lanka. Amid this, there were speculations that India would choose to retain Rohit as their Test and One-Day International (ODI) skipper, while Hardik would become their permanent T20I captain.

Ahead of the first ODI between India and Sri Lanka, Rohit rubbished the rumours, saying when cricketers play across formats, they do need rest in between.

"Firstly, it is not possible to play back-to-back matches. You need to give them (all format players) enough break. I definitely fall in that as well. We have three T20Is against New Zealand. We will see what happens after IPL. I have not decided to give up the format," Rohit said in a pre-match press conference on Monday.

The first ODI will be played in Guwahati and the other two in Kolkata and Trivandrum on Jan. 12 and 15 respectively.

It was earlier reported that fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah was withdrawn from the ODI series due to fitness reasons.

Bumrah, who has not played competitive cricket since September 2022 due to a back injury, was earlier surprisingly added to the ODI squads against Sri Lanka. But on the eve of the opening game, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that they have decided to pull Bumrah out of the series as a "precautionary measure."

"Team India pacer Jasprit Bumrah has been ruled out of the upcoming 3-match ODI series against Sri Lanka. Bumrah, who was set to join the team in Guwahati ahead of the ODI series, will need some more time to build bowling resilience. This decision has been taken as a precautionary measure. The All-India Senior Selection Committee has not named any replacement for Jasprit Bumrah," a BCCI statement read.

The decision was also taken keeping in mind India's home four-Test series against Australia and the 50-over World Cup, which India are due to host later this year.

Rohit Sharma: Unfortunate for Bumrah to miss ODI series

Speaking further to the reporters on Monday, Rohit revealed that Bumrah "felt a little bit of stiffness" in the last couple of days.

"It's very unfortunate for him. The poor guy has been working really hard at the NCA all this time. Just when he got back, he had full fitness, he started bowling and everything. In the last two days, I think this incident happened when he felt a little bit of stiffness in his back. It's nothing major, it's just stiffness. And when Bumrah says anything, we have to be very cautious about it and that is what we did.

"I thought it was important for us to make that decision to pull him out because when we named him, he was in the process of getting his workload done, he was bowling in the nets. We need to be very careful with him. He had a major injury before the World Cup, so we have to be careful," Rohit added.