Rohit Sharma dismissed talk of ODIs losing their appeal and says all three formats of the game are important to him.

Recently Ben Stokes’s decision to quit ODI cricket has raised concerns over the future of the 50-over format.

India captain Rohit Sharma, however, dismissed the talk of the one-day cricket losing its appeal. “Mera naam hi one-day cricket se bana hai, sab bekar ki baatein hai, (I made my mark in ODIs, the talk is nonsense),” said Sharma in an event

Along with Virat Kohli, Sharma is the biggest one-day batter of this era with three double hundreds, and the highest score of 264. Overall, he aggregates 9376 runs with 29 centuries.

Sharma believes the format still has value. “People were earlier talking about Test cricket. For me, cricket is important — whatever the format. I would never say that ODI is getting finished or T20 is getting finished or Tests are nearing an end.

I wish there is another format as well because for me, playing the game is most important. Since childhood, we dreamt of playing the game for India and whenever we play ODIs, stadiums are full, and the excitement remains high.

It’s an individual choice as to which format to play or not, but for me, all three formats are important,” said India’s all-format captain.

Playing for the country matters the most for Sharma. “I don’t know what people are thinking about playing leagues over international cricket.

There will be ten more leagues, but in the coming years, we will get to know what the players prefer.

But as of now, the situation of Indian cricket remains the same — we play the IPL and international cricket. The guys are getting exposure and our aim is to create bench strength,

That’s why in Zimbabwe, there are a lot of players who are touring for the first time – be it Shahbaz Ahmed, Rahul Tripathi – and it is good exposure.”

Rohit’s next assignment will be the Asia Cup in Dubai, starting later this month. India open their campaign against arch-rivals Pakistan.

The last time the two sides met was at the T20 World Cup last year when India was handed a heavy 10-wicket defeat.

While all the focus this year has been on the preparation for the T20 World Cup, there is an extra spice added to the contest in because of the India vs Pakistan clash

“Asia Cup is happening after a long time, but we played Pakistan last year in Dubai, where obviously the result did not go our way. But the Asia Cup is different now.”Sharma said

“The team is playing differently and has prepared different, so a lot of things have changed from then,” Rohit said ( H/T Hindustan Times )

“But for us, we need to assess the conditions and keep in mind the fact that we will be playing in 40-plus degrees. We need to assess all those factors and prepare accordingly,” he said.” he continued

Rohit Sharma also talked about Team India’s plan going forward “As a team, we are working on a few things ahead of the Asia Cup. We have to keep the process going. There are still about two-and-a-half months left for the T20 World Cup.

Before that, we have the Asia Cup and two home series against Australia and South Africa. So, more or less 80-90 percent of your team is set, of course, there could be three-four changes if at all depending on the conditions.

As of now, we have been playing in India and will play in UAE, so the conditions in Australia will be different. We need to check what suits our team in Australia”

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You can catch all the details about the upcoming Asia Cup squad here

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