Left out of Aus tour, will Rohit return for Mumbai Indians?

Rohit Sharma bats in the Mumbai Indians nets session.

IMAGE: Rohit Sharma bats in the Mumbai Indians nets session. Photograph: BCCI/IPL

Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma's hamstring injury is grabbing the headlines ever since the selectors decided to omit him from India’s squads for the upcoming tour of Australia.

But that has not deterred the opener; in fact, he is working harder than ever to get fit, not just for the Australia series, but also the business end of the Indian Premier League.

Sources in the know of developments confirmed that Rohit, who did not be taking the field against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, is working on his game and hamstring muscle to ensure that he is back in the team soon.

"He has been training regularly. The day after the Kings XI Punjab game was a rest day, so there was anyway no training. But whenever the Mumbai Indians unit has trained, he has been there; and while he slowly started with working on his leg, he has been hitting the nets now.

“In fact, before the last game, he also took throw downs at the ground. He is clearly making an honest effort to regain full match fitness," the source told ANI.

Having injured his hamstring during the twin Super Over encounter against Kings XI Punjab on October 18, Rohit had to sit out the last two games for Mumbai Indians. While Mumbai won the game against Chennai Super Kings by 10 wickets at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, they lost to Rajasthan Royals by eight wickets on Sunday.

Though Mumbai Indians sit pretty atop the points table with 14 from 11 games, what came as a big shock was Rohit’s omission from all of India's squads for the Australia series, which starts November 27, with the first ODI at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Even though, as per reports, national team physio Nitin Patel had informed the selection committee -- led by Sunil Joshi -- that Rohit would need 2-3 weeks to get fit, the selectors decided to omit him from the team and added that his injury status would be monitored by the BCCI medical team.

This has surprised some as Rohit has already completed 10 of the 21 days that the medical team expects the limited-overs deputy to take to recover from the hamstring injury.