Indian captain Rohit Sharma, who injured his thumb in the second ODI, has been ruled out of the final ODI against Bangladesh and will fly to Mumbai to consult an expert ahead of the Test series, according to head coach Rahul Dravid.
While attempting a catch in the second over of Bangladesh's batting innings, the skipper injured his finger. As he walked away, the ball struck his thumb, causing him to bleed. He also did not bat to begin the innings, with Virat Kohli taking his place as Shikhar Dhawan's opening partner.
After the medical team evaluated him, the BCCI confirmed that the skipper had gone for scans.
However, with India trailing in the run chase, the 35-year-old walked out to bat at No.9, slamming an unbeaten 51 off just 28 balls to put India on the verge of victory. He hit a six with 12 runs needed off two balls, but only managed a single off the final ball as Bangladesh won the series by five runs.
Rohit's trip to India for medical advice has called his participation in the two Test matches into question.
"Rohit will certainly miss the next game, fly back to Bombay, consult with an expert and see how it is and whether he can come back for the Test matches or not. I'm not sure. It's too soon to say that (he'll be fit for the Tests or not)," Dravid said in the post-match press conference.
Dravid also praised Rohit for showing courage and coming out to bat despite having injury.
"I think for him to show that level of courage, he had a serious dislocation, he had to go to hospital to get that set right, stitches in his hand, a couple of injections to go out and bat," he said.
"Credit to him, he was really determined to go out and have a go and take a chance, and it's amazing how close he got us with that innings, it was an absolutely phenomenal innings by the skipper, great courage to be able to go out there and give us a chance," he added.
Meanwhile, Deepak Chahar, who only bowled three overs in the second ODI in Dhaka, and Kuldeep Sen, who missed the match on Wednesday, were both ruled out of the final ODI.
"All three of them will definitely not play in the next game," Dravid said.
The head coach dismissed worries about India's ODI cricket form despite back-to-back series losses and hoped to have a full-strength side in the upcoming series.
When there is a lot of cricket, you have to prioritise certain formats. For the past two years, we have prioritised the T20 format with two World Cups, which has prevented many of our boys from playing a lot of one-day cricket. Over the next 8–9 months, we will be prioritising one–day cricket a lot, and hopefully we will get our full squad to be able to play from the home series in January.
We knew that we wouldn't be able to play our full teams in NZ or here because of how tight they were and how close they were, especially after coming back from a really hectic 3–4 months of cricket, but that's the way it is, and that's the way we intend.
But hopefully now the white-ball players will get a little bit of a break while the Test players play the Test matches. We're also hoping that once we get to India, where we have nine matches before the IPL, we won't have too many injuries and be able to field a stable lineup for those nine games," he added.
Talking about the positives, Dravid highlighted the performance of Washington Sundar, Shreyas, Umran Malik and others.
"Again he (Washington) is someone who has had a lot of injuries last year. It's really nice to see the way he's coming back, he's bowled well in both the games and he batted well in New Zealand as well. Here because we wanted to lengthen our batting a little bit and keep that left-right combination going, we promoted Washington. We think that he's a very capable batsman and he can bat really well,'' he said.
"I think even in this series just to see the way Umran came in and bowled today (was pleasing). Unfortunately for Kuldeep, he played one game and got injured. He's someone really exciting. There's some good positives in spite of losing the series, two close games in 2-0, we had our opportunities but there's some positives we can take from this series as well.
"Rahul's batting in the last game, Shreyas' batting in this game, some of the bowling... I thought Siraj was exceptional in the last game. Shardul has bowled particularly well in both the games and Washington as well, Axar's batting today. So there have been bits and pieces there we can take heart from. Of course we're disappointed with the result but there are some positives as we build into the next World Cup and there are a lot of matches to go. So nothing to be disheartened about, things to learn from and hopefully move forward," he concluded.