India star Rohit Sharma said that while Hardik Pandya isn’t deemed completely fit to bowl now, the management is expecting him to contribute with the ball when the T20 World Cup starts. Hardik did not roll his arms during India’s warm-up match against England, which the Men-in-Blue won on Monday.

Notably, Pandya bowled a bit during India’s tour of Sri Lanka but he represented Mumbai Indians as a specialist batsman in the entire UAE leg of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2021).

“We obviously want to make sure we get our sixth bowling option as well. Possibly today is the game we can try all those things, try and see who can bowl, the bowler who can come in the bowl as the 6th option,” Rohit Sharma said at the toss ceremony of the second warm-up match against Australia.

“He is coming along pretty well. But it’s still going to take some time I think. Because he hasn’t bowled much. So when you play in these tournaments, you need to be absolutely fit and 100 percent. In fact, more than 100 percent. He is just getting there, he hasn’t started bowling yet. But hopefully, in the next few days, he will start bowling. He should be ready anytime when the World Cup starts.

“Possibly, we need to find that sixth option (Rohit’s off-spinners ready). Myself, Virat and Suryakumar, all those guys need to come in and bowl see who can be that sixth option. Not really (Worried about the balance). Even if you play with 5 bowlers, we have got the quality. But always you need that 6th option to free your bowlers, in case someone has a bad day. It’s always nice to have options when you’re playing a tournament as big as the World Cup,” Rohit added.

Rohit came out at the toss instead of Virat Kohli for India‘s second warm-up match on Wednesday against Australia at the ICC Academy Ground, Dubai.