The whole math in cricket is about timing. We have enjoyed the timing of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma's batting for years. Jadeja used to show amazing timing even while diving for fielding. The better the timing, the bigger the player. There is another game of timing in the world of sports. This other game is the timing of retirement. Amidst millions of cricket fans, the glittering world of advertising, lots of glamour, how can a player decide when to retire?

There is a saying about this 'timing'. The Hindi translation of which is that you should retire when people ask you - why now, you should not retire when people ask you why not yet? Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja kept this timing in mind.

On one hand they embraced the victory and on the other they announced - now we say goodbye to the T20 format. Virat started, Rohit followed him and then came Ravindra Jadeja. Before moving the story forward, understand the story of these three as well. The story means the story of dreams. Which was completed in a very wonderful way.

The story of the fulfillment of a dream before retirement

First of all, talk about Rohit Sharma- Rohit Sharma had lost the finals of ICC World Test Championship and ODI World Cup as a captain.

He had to win an ICC trophy as a captain. His dream has come true. Rohit knows that he is not in the race of 100 centuries. As of today, he has 48 international centuries to his credit. Now after this, whether he scores 50 centuries or 55. The big thing is that he has drawn a big line. Now he is in the category of Kapil Dev and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. When India won the T20 World Cup in 2007, Rohit was a new player, this time he was the captain.

Virat Kohli's story is also interesting. He was a part of the team that won the 2011 ODI World Cup, but then Virat Kohli was Team India's Chiku.

Chiku is Virat's nickname. After 2011, in his career, he became The Great Virat Kohli from Chiku, but this difference was not visible in terms of titles. Now after becoming The Great Virat Kohli, he has another World Cup trophy. The big thing is that this time he is also the hero of the title win. No one makes the mistake of taking Jadeja lightly. This player had a treasure of experience. He was just waiting for a World Cup trophy. That wait is also over now.

The story of a hero who created an alternative

Now let's come to part two of this story.

Now Rohit, Virat, Jadeja are gone...the big question is whether the Indian team has an alternative to them. The answer to this question is yes. And the credit for this 'yes' goes to Rahul Dravid. We will talk about him later, but for now let's talk about alternatives. First let's talk about the captaincy options in the T20 format. Here three names can be taken very strongly. These three names are - Hardik Pandya, Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav.

Don't forget that when Rohit Sharma was away from the T20 format for about a year, Hardik Pandya was captaining the team.

Bumrah can also be considered for this role, but Bumrah too will probably not be seen in the T20 format for very long. His priority is now slowly shifting towards Test cricket. Now let's come to the options in batting. Rahul Dravid has worked so hard that there is no need to worry here either. Let us tell you all the options one by one. The first name is Yashasvi Jaiswal. Yashasvi has played a total of 98 T20 matches so far. This also includes the matches played in IPL. In these 98 matches, he has scored 2757 runs at a strike rate of 148.86.

Three options for the top order

After the departure of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in the top order, the next three options are Shubman Gill, Rituraj Gaikwad and Abhishek Sharma. If the name of Abhishek Sharma seems new to you, then let us tell you that this is the same Abhishek who created a storm in the field for Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2024. He has also been selected in Team India for the Zimbabwe tour.

Now look at the statistics of these three options. Shubman Gill has scored 4228 runs in 138 T20 matches. His strike rate is 137.18. He has scored 24 half-centuries in this format. 129 runs is the best innings of his T20 career. Rituraj Gaikwad has scored 4618 runs in 136 matches so far. He has 31 half-centuries to his credit. Gaikwad has batted at a strike rate of 139.18. Abhishek Sharma has scored 2671 runs in 104 T20 matches. His strike rate is 153.59 and he has 16 half-centuries to his credit.

When Sachin, Dravid and Ganguly took a big decision

Finally, let's talk about two more important things about this entire incident. Perhaps it has never happened in the history of Indian cricket that three big players have retired after a single match. But don't worry. Let's go through the history of this T20 World Cup. The first page of this history opens in 2007 when the T20 World Cup was played for the first time. Remember, just before that World Cup, it was decided that Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid will not be a part of the T20 team. These three had decided that this format is for young players and only young players should be allowed to play it.

After this, the youth created history under the leadership of Dhoni. That means Indian cricket will not get another Rohit, another Virat or another Jadeja but the options we just talked about are also big star players of the coming times.

Rahul Dravid's big contribution

Now let's talk about Rahul Dravid. The contribution that Rahul Dravid is making to Indian cricket, its value will be understood for many years to come. Today, if there is talk of alternatives to players like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in Indian cricket, then its hero is Rahul Dravid. The hard work he did first with the NCA and then with the Under-19 team will be rewarded for many more years to come. When Rahul Dravid announced his retirement, he did not get a chance to take this decision from the field. God gave him this opportunity as a coach. When on 29 June 2024 everyone was patting his back. Finally, let us also tell you that even though no one can prove this thing. But those who understand Rohit and Virat say - the decision of retirement was taken on the same day when on 19 November 2023, despite the defeat in the ODI World Cup, Rohit Sharma was ready to take charge of the team again in the T20 World Cup. The only condition was that - Virat Kohli should also be with him.