With the T20 World Cup roster already chosen, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma wants his players to get out of their comfort zone and discover new things about their game in the six home games against Australia and South Africa ahead of the ICC showpiece next month . Rohit thinks players can now afford to push their ‘limits’ without the pressure of selection. Management will allow players like Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Arshdeep Singh to rest for the six games, but overall it will have a full roster at its disposal.
Rohit’s comments come in the background of his Asia Cup campaign in which the team management experimented quite a bit and was criticized for it.
“I wanted to bring safety into the team, so we announced the team for both series for the World Cup (Australia and South Africa). In Asia Cup we also had more or less the same team,” Rohit told Australia.
“In these six games, we want to keep trying what we can achieve with different styles. It’s about going out and finding ways to explore ourselves, but there’s no limit to trying new things. expanding directions to accomplish so many things for the team.” Virat Kohli went out of his comfort zone during the Asian Cup and played a rare sweep and Rohit wants even the bowlers to push their limits.
“We will continue to encourage people to be more expressive. For example, someone who doesn’t play a reverse sweep can play that and see if they can do it right. Someone can fall to the floor, things you’re not comfortable with, you do that and see what happens.
“If you go to the World Cup, you should have all these answers. For bowlers, they can try opening the spell with a yorker or a bouncer,” said the skipper.
After the early exit from the T20 World Cup last year, India was forced to change their hitting method and Rohit said the team will continue to play aggressively and in case it loses early wickets the backup plan is in place.
“We will continue to play like this. We made that very clear at the beginning of my (captain’s term) and everyone is comfortable with that. At the same time, we know our second line of defense when we are in trouble. spend a lot of time talking about this things,” he said.
“Guys are very clear when we are 10 to three how to hit. When we are 50 for no loss, how to hit. These have been discussed extensively, now it’s just about execution.” India had won against Pakistan and Hong Kong in the first two matches but lost to Babar Azam and his men and Sri Lanka in the Super Four stage to crash out of the Asian Cup.
“If you also see our Asia Cup performance, we posted par-plus or par scores in every match except for the one match against Sri Lanka where we got 173, which was also a good score,” said Rohit.
“In Super 4s we had close matches against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it could have gone either way. You also need a bit of luck. Hopefully we get that in the World Cup.” Speaking of the batting style, Rohit said: “This approach of ours has given us a lot of confidence that we can play like this. It’s a great sign.
“We will have another evaluation meeting from the last 10 months after these six games and see what we have to do at the World Cup,” said Rohit.
With Mohammad Shami defeated with COVID-19, Prasidh Krishna injured and Mohammad Siraj playing county cricket in England, Umesh Yadav has been brought back in the T20 fold.
Rohit came in as Shami’s replacement, saying that Umesh was a simple selection given his rich experience and ability to swing the ball in power play.
In the absence of Jasprit Bumrah, India’s Asian Cup bowling failed. With Bumrah back and the squad selected at full strength, Rohit is happy with the look of the bowling department.
The captain was particularly impressed by Arshdeep Singh’s run in the Asian Cup.
“The way Arshdeep bowled was very impressive. The way he landed Yorkers under extreme pressure in his first year of international cricket is not easy.
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“He’s a very smart guy and keeps it simple. We needed a seam maker for the left arm and he did a good job in IPL and then he came here and did a good job. We always wanted variety in our attack and we got it.” now.”
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
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