'He came here from Delhi at 5.30 am' - Anurag Thakur thanks Rohit Sharma for attending Khel Mahakumbh's inauguration

Indian Sports Minister Anurag Thakur thanked Rohit Sharma for attending the inauguration of the third edition of Khel Mahakumbh in Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday, March 05. The Indian captain was accompanied by the head coach Rahul Dravid at the event as the duo marked their presence to inspire young athletes.

The event took place in Thakur’s constituency, Hamirpur which is about 90 kilometres away from Dharamsala where India are slated to play the last Test of the series against England from March 7. Speaking at the event, Thakur thanked Sharma for his commitment to attend the opening and mentioned that he came at 5:30 am from Delhi and thanked him for his heartwarming gesture.

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"Rohit Sharma has come here from Delhi at 5.30 am to inaugurate our Khel Mahakumbh, I thank him wholeheartedly - If Rohit wanted, he could have refused to come here as 5th Test was from 7th but he came as he knew that the future of India would be here,” said Thakur at the event.

Meanwhile, Rohit joined the Indian squad after attending the event as he made his grand entry in a chopper. The Indian skipper has been phenomenal in the ongoing series so far as he inspired a young team to script a comeback after being 0-1 down following a 28-run loss in the series opener in Hyderabad.

Following the loss in the first India, India were without the services of senior players Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul who were ruled out of the second game due to injury. With Virat Kohli already unavailable for the entire series, team India were in a precarious situation heading into the second game in Visakhapatnam.

Rohit Sharma became the first captain to beat Ben Stokes' England in a Test series

However, captain Sharma made use of the resources available at his disposal handing debut caps to four players in the next three games and scripted a brilliant comeback. As a result, England lost their first series under the captaincy of Ben Stokes.

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With the bat, the opening batter is the fifth-highest run scorer of the series with 297 runs from eight innings at an average of 37.12 with one hundred and one fifty to his name. Meanwhile, with India 3-1 up in the series, captain Sharma and his men will be going for the kill in Dharamsala to further consolidate their position on the top of the World Test Championship points table.