Harbhajan Singh Lionel Messi Virat Kohli Rohit Sharma World Cup

Former India tweaker Harbhajan Singh brought up the example of Argentine great Lionel Messi to weigh in on if Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma can play in the 2027 ODI World Cup. Harbhajan said that if a 39-year-old Messi can help Argentina reach the final of the 2026, there’s nothing stopping the two Indian veterans from having an impact in the ODI World Cup.

“Whoever the player is, I believe the marker should be performance, not age. Virat may be 39 but if he is still beating those 20-year-old guys on the field, it (his age) doesn’t matter. Look at Lionel Messi. At 40 (39), five men fail to stop him. If a player has that kind of fitness and skill where even five opponents can’t keep him at bay, then we know that skill always takes precedence,” Harbhajan said in a PII podcast.

“If I were the coach, my job would be to give them the platform as my expectations from Rohit and Virat would be much higher than what I expect from a Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. These two have that experience. They have experience of 300 games which Sooryavanshi won’t have. Yes, a Sooryavanshi can walk in and blast bowlers but Virat and Rohit have the experience. Fitness is a priority, and your performance matters. Performance is the ultimate criterion. So if these two score runs and can match the fitness of a Shreyas (Iyer) or a Yashasvi (Jaiswal), then nothing else matters,” Harbhajan declared.

The Jalandhar man, who accumulated 416 Test and 269 ODI wickets in his stellar career, said players usually know when to call time on their careers and recalled how his body told him to stop a good six years before he actually made the formal announcement. “Rohit and Virat will get their answer from within. You realise when you have reached that phase where you need to call time,” he said.

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