For Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, the road to the 2027 ODI World Cup is no longer about making it to just another global tournament. It is about getting one last shot at unfinished business.
That has been their stated ambition since conversations first began about the ICC tournament in Africa, months after the heartbreak of the 2019 World Cup. They have stuck to it even amid the doubts raised over their futures after they retired from Tests, limiting their presence in international cricket to the ODI format.
Despite their intentions and their accolades, both, however, still have to prove their worth and earn their places in India’s final squad. They have been questioned about their intentions for the big tournament. They have been questioned about their fitness. They even returned to domestic cricket last season.
And as the tournament draws closer, the conversations between the two senior batters are becoming more intense, more detailed and increasingly focused on the smallest margins.
“When you have played for so long and you have been in leadership positions respectively for India, the goal is always that, as a senior player, you would bounce off things with your captain. In the same way, when I became captain, I would bounce off a lot of ideas with him. And MS equally, because he had just stepped down. And similarly for Rohit, when he became captain, he would bounce off ideas with me as well,” Kohli told JioStar ahead of India’s first ODI against West Indies.
The conversations, he said, have always centred on one thing: what is best for the Indian team.
“But of course, when the World Cup comes closer, then you're also looking to tighten things a lot more and streamline small little things. You go into more intense, more detailed conversations of how can we get a particular right, immediately correct it and utilise it in the next game. So, those conversations have always been there between me and him.”
And there is history behind those conversations as well. Both have played 16 ICC tournaments together. They have experienced the near-heartbreaks together. They have seen through the criticism that Indian cricket faced during the 11-year ICC trophy drought between 2013 and 2024 — including the memories of the ODI World Cups of 2019 and 2023.
India lost to New Zealand in the rain-affected 2019 semifinal in Manchester and were defeated by Australia in the 2023 final in Ahmedabad. And while both losses left Kohli distraught, he is eager to look ahead towards one final opportunity.
“The thought will never cross my mind that the business I had is finished. As long as you're playing, there is always something to look forward to. And I'm looking forward to the World Cup, looking at what lies ahead for me.”
That unfinished business is what gives the next phase of his ODI career its significance.
“When the World Cup is played, when we play an ICC tournament, it has its own unique challenge, because you face different opponents, you play at different venues. So, you have to prepare differently, think in a different way and that is the challenge,” he said.
[Watch the first ODI of West Indies’ tour of India on September 27, from 2 PM onwards, LIVE on JioHotstar and Star Sports Network.]