Mohali, 18 September (IANS): Despite India failing to win the 2022 Asia Cup in the United Arab Emirates, captain Rohit Sharma is confident his team will continue their attacking approach with the racquet, which has helped him to results in bilateral string wins and made it clear that this is the If approach doesn’t happen on a specific date then they have a plan in place as they kick-start their preparation for the men’s T20 World Championship with Tuesday’s first T20I against Australia.
“We will continue to play like this. Because we made that clear right from the start, and everyone feels comfortable with that. At the same time we know our second line of defence, what is it if we get into trouble.” We spend a lot of time talking about these things. Guys are very clear: if we are three for 50 or 50 for no loss, like ours We’re very clear about having to deal with the batting business and it’s been discussed at length.”
“It’s just a matter of going in and executing it. If you look at our hitting style at the Asian Cup, we scored about 170 in almost every game. The par, I mean, except in that one game against Sri Lanka, like 173, where we failed to defend. They also watched our games against Pakistan. It went to the end with last-over finishes. So it could have gone either way. So we weren’t really worried about what happened there,” Rohit said in the press conference.
Rohit went on to say that there must be some luck on their side for big events like the World Cup and revealed that a review meeting will be held after the series against South Africa ends.
“To be honest, we played good cricket. When you play a tournament like this, you also need a bit of luck. I’m not saying 100 percent luck but five percent or even ten percent I’m expecting during the world championship in toss, run-outs. What I mean is that Rub of Green has to go your way at the World Cup as well. This approach of ours has brought us a lot of success. We trust that the players will go out and play what they have achieved in the process. So it’s a great sign and we’re very happy with it.”
“We will have a review after the South Africa series of how everything has gone over the past 10 months and what we need to do at the World Cup. Of course, when we try to do something, we believe in a lot of analysis. How did it turn out for us? All these things would be checked very well.
In the series against Australia, India welcome backpacing duo Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel, who missed the Asian Cup through injury. While Australia are reigning world champions and South Africa have shown lately that they are not to be taken lightly, Sharma is wary of the tough challenge from the two sides and wants to know more about his players in these six games against strong sides.
“As a team, the work never stops for us. We’re always learning and improving as a team. Of course, in every series you play, you try to find something new about your team and your players. We ask them to go and express yourself , go out and play freely, many things come out of it, it’s very important to play series like this, we learn a lot about my players, what they can do in different situations, I’m sure we can figure it out much more when we play Australia and South Africa.”
“I will never say that we are a perfect team. All we can do is prepare well, keep studying and improving. It’s important to have humility when you’re approaching a big tournament like the World Cup approaching. Those two series (against Australia and South Africa ) will be quite a challenge as they are the top two teams in the world. So it will be a good challenge for us.”
