5 cricketers who preferred franchise cricket over national team

4. Rohit Sharma

This might be a surprising name on the list. It all started during the business end of Indian Premier League 2020. Rohit Sharma’s franchise was sitting comfortably on top of the points table. Sharma missed a few games before the last league game of the tournament due to a hamstring injury. He was excluded from Indian squads for the Australia tour.

However, to everyone’s surprise, Rohit came out to lead his team in the final league game of his team. He wasn’t fully fit clearly by the looks. They went on to lose that game against SRH. But, Rohit’s act raised many eyebrows. He went on to play Qualifier 1 and Final as well with the injury. With Rohit doing well in the final, selectors added him to the Test team for the Australia tour.

Rohit trained in NCA to get ready in time for the Australia Test series, but his hamstring injury aggravated by that time and he missed the flight to Down Under. He got ruled out of the first two Tests alongside pacer Ishant Sharma. Had Rohit pulled out of IPL 2020, he might have got a chance to represent the Indian team in the Australia series.