Kohli made 139 not out and Rohit 225 runs against West Indies, and the BCCI president says age should not count against them
Mithun Manhas says fitness and performance, not age, should decide India’s 2027 World Cup picks. On the evidence of the West Indies series, Kohli and Rohit have already passed that test.
Oct 13, 2026
Mithun Manhas did not say Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will play the 2027 World Cup. In his interview with Sportstar, the BCCI president was careful to say the board is “not in a position to comment” because the call belongs to the selectors and the coaches. Then he gave his own view anyway: “fitness and performance should be the criteria for selection, and definitely not age.”
He is right, and it is worth saying why, because age is the only argument left against them.
What the West Indies series showed
India’s last ODI series was against West Indies in late September and early October. Kohli, who had not played an ODI since July, made 139 not out from 88 balls in the first game in Thiruvananthapuram. It was his 55th ODI hundred, and on the way he became only the second man after Sachin Tendulkar to reach 15,000 ODI runs.
Rohit made 32, 101 and 92 across the three games, 225 runs in all. In Mullanpur he became the fourth opener to pass 10,000 ODI runs, after Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya and Chris Gayle, and he got there in fewer innings than any of them.
That is not a pair hanging on. Kohli did get a first-ball duck in the third game, bowled by Jayden Seales, and India lost that match. One bad ball in Mullanpur does not cancel out 139 not out in Thiruvananthapuram.
Where age does come in
The dates are not in their favour. Rohit turns 40 on 30 April 2027. Kohli turns 39 on 5 November 2027, in the middle of the tournament. The World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia starts on 2 October 2027, and India’s first game is against Australia in Cape Town on 7 October.
Both retired from Tests in 2025 and left T20Is after the 2024 T20 World Cup, so ODIs are the only international cricket they play. That cuts both ways. They come into every series fresh, but they also come in with very little cricket behind them, and India do not play many ODIs. Fitness, in Manhas’s sense, means turning up after a gap of months and scoring straight away. In September, they did.
Who is actually deciding
The awkward part of Manhas’s answer is the bit about the selectors. Ajit Agarkar’s term as chief selector ended on 4 October, and Pragyan Ojha is the interim chairman while the BCCI looks for a permanent one. So the panel that will shape the next 12 months of World Cup planning does not yet have a settled head.
The next test of all this comes soon. India play five ODIs in New Zealand starting on 4 November, and the squad for that series has not been named yet. If both are in it, and both make runs in New Zealand, the age question gets harder to raise every time.
Manhas also said that having “Virat, Hardik and Rohit on the side will definitely help” Shubman Gill, who replaced Rohit as ODI captain. I would put it more simply. Gill made 110 and then 223 not out against West Indies, and he has two of the best ODI batters India have produced sitting either side of him in the order. Leaving one of them out because of a birthday would be a strange way to help a young captain.