There is a bigger goal – Rohit Sharma on the fate of the series against Australia

There has been a lot of speculation about how India will be lining up for the final ODI against Australia considering the fact that two of their major stars are returning to the fold.

With Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli all set to hit the yards for the series finale, it will be intriguing to watch the shuffles that the Indian management resort to for the final game of the series.

Talking at the pre-match presentation, the Indian captain said that there is a viral outbreak in the dressing room and the options to choose from for the Men in Blue is pretty much limited.

He said, “We have got only 13 players to choose from, and there is a bit of viral [sickness] going around in the team as well, so there is a lot of uncertainty in the team at this point, which we cannot help.”

He further added, “The next few weeks,  it's quite important for us to look after the players and their well-being, so it's okay for them to be home at this point in time, but the reason being obviously we want everybody to be fresh during the World Cup and hopefully they can come back fresh."

Sharma shifted his focus to the importance of this series and the upcoming of the two warm-up matches for Team India, adding, “You play all these games and you try to improve whatever you lack. So we have done the same in the last two tournaments. These two matches that we played with Australia and also in the Asia Cup, we challenged our team by putting ourselves in difficult situations, played in difficult conditions.”

Shedding some light on India’s preparations, Sharma stated, “So I think preparation-wise, we have achieved quite a bit. Tomorrow's game obviously allows us to again test ourselves in certain areas of the game, whether we can keep up with the consistency that we have, that we have shown in these last two games.”

He concluded by saying, “There is a bigger goal, bigger picture in mind at this point in time. So focusing on that will be very crucial for us and not worry about whether [we] whitewash [Australia]."