If Rohit and Virat score runs why should we look at their age, asks Harbhajan Singh

NEW DELHI: If Lionel Messi can, why can't Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, wondered India spin great Harbhajan Singh as he backed the talismanic veterans to play the ODI World Cup next year provided they have the conviction to continue.

In a podcast interview with PTI at its headquarters, the 46-year-old former off-spinner offered his views on the never-ending debate surrounding Rohit and Kohli's future as one-format players on the wrong side of 30s.

During the interview, Harbhajan also revealed that his autobiography is ready and is expected to be released later this year.

"Whoever the player is, I believe the marker should be performance, not age," Harbhajan said, asserting that Kohli and Rohit will carry a far heavier burden of expectations than an exciting-but-relatively-untested youngster like Vaibhav Sooryavanshi at the World Cup.

Given the resolve Rohit and Kohli have shown so far, Harbhajan said they were capable of pulling off what a 39-year-old Messi managed at the recent football World Cup. Messi dragged Argentina to the final with his individual brilliance that tore through defences every time he dashed with the ball.

Rohit will turn 40 and Kohli will be 39 when the ODI World Cup takes place in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

"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," he reasoned.

Harbhajan went on to credit Kohli for instilling the winning belief in the dressing room by constantly telling players that no target was unachievable. He also said that it was Kohli who pushed the boundaries when it came to fitness and made him realise that his threshold was higher than what he imagined.

"This change was first brought in by Virat Kohli when he became the captain in 2014-15. Before that we won't think that we can go for a chase of 400 on the final day. Virat told the boys, 'let's at least try. We might lose but if we keep trying one day we will surpass that 400 plus in last innings.'

"'If we have to get 10 wickets on last day, we will go for it. The winning mentality and not settle for draw is what Virat Kohli got," he remembered.

"But his biggest contribution was bringing in fitness culture. 90 per cent credit for creating the fitness revolution goes to Kohli. My idea of fitness was endurance but Virat made this team believe that if you are fit, you can fly around," Harbhajan pointed out.

Therefore, Harbhajan's advice to head coach Gautam Gambhir would be to trust the duo's experience.

"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," he explained.

"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.

Harbhajan officially retired in December 2021, but he played his last Test match in 2015 at Galle where Dinesh Chandimal hit him all over the park, making him realise that perhaps it was time to bid adieu to red-ball cricket.

"You realise that once you have reached a stage where if you want to survive, you have to work harder than before. You are in your mid-30s and you can't be expected to do what you did as an 18 or 20-year-old.

"At that stage, you are someone with 400 Test wickets and you are expected to perform at that level. A lot of players can recover from a dip in performance. But there would be another lot which would feel 'That's it, I can't stretch it any longer'," he said.

"If you have it in you, no harm in pushing but if it is otherwise, then one should listen to one's body."

Harbhajan admitted that the emergence of Ravichandran Ashwin as a potent and performing off-spinner also made it challenging for him at that stage.

"Ashwin was already doing well... You have to accept the reality that this guy (Ashwin) is doing well. If I had to beat Ashwin, I would have had to start from scratch and work as much as I had worked for those first 400 wickets. Could I have done it? The answer came from within that I can't," he said candidly.

Coming back to India's ODI squad for the 2027 World Cup, Harbhajan said with one year still left, he wouldn't be overtly worried about its composition right now.

"When you have too many options, that can also be a problem although it is good to have options. Now when it comes to the ODI World Cup, I believe six months prior to the event, the team management should be clear about the core team and players should know what their role is," he said.