Rohit believes players can now afford to stretch their ‘limits’ without the pressure of selection.
Management will give rest to people like Hardik PandyaBhuvneshwar Kumar and Arshdeep Singh in all six games, but overall he will have a full squad.
Rohit’s comments come against the backdrop of his Asian Cup campaign in which the team’s management experimented a lot and faced criticism over it.
“I wanted to bring security to the team, that’s why we announced the squad for the two series before the World Cup (Australia and South Africa). In the Asian Cup too, we had more less the same team,” Rohit said ahead of the series opener against Australia.
“In these six games, we want to keep trying what we can achieve with different styles. It’s about getting out there and trying to find ways to explore ourselves, but there’s no limit to trying to new things. You can expand in so many directions to accomplish so many things for the team.”
Virat Kohli stepped out of his comfort zone during the Asian Cup and played a rare sweeping shot and Rohit wants even bowlers to push their limits.
“We will continue to encourage people to be more expressive. For example, someone who doesn’t play reverse sweep, can they play that and see if they can do it well. Someone can hit the ground, things that you’re not comfortable doing, you do that and see what happens.
“When you come into the World Cup you should have all of these answers. For the bowlers, they can try to open the spell with a yorker or a bouncer,” the skipper said.
After the early exit from the T20 World Cup last year, India were forced to change their batting approach and Rohit said the team will continue to play aggressively and in case they lose the first counters, the emergency plan is in place.
“We will continue to play like this. It’s something we said quite clearly at the start of my (captaincy) term and everyone is comfortable with it. At the same time, we know our second line of defense if we have issues. We spend a lot of time talking about these things,” he said.
“Guys are very clear if we’re 10 for three how we have to beat. If we’re 50 without a loss, how we have to beat. Those have been discussed at length, it’s just a matter of executing now.”
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 withdraw from the Asian Cup.
“If you see our performances in the Asian Cup as well, we posted over or over scores in every game except the game against Sri Lanka where we got 173 which was also a good score,” said Rohit.
“In Super 4 we had close games against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it could have gone either way. You also need a bit of luck. Hopefully we get it in the World Cup.”
Speaking more about the hitting style, Rohit said: “This approach has given us a lot of confidence that we can go out and play like this. That’s a good sign.
“We’ll have another 10-month review meeting after these six games and see what we have to do in the World Cup,” Rohit said.
Whereas mohamed chami with Covid-19, Prasidh Krishna injured and Mohammad Siraj playing county cricket in England, Umesh Yadav has been brought back into the T20 fold.
As Shami’s backup, Rohit said Umesh was an easy selection given his wealth of experience and ability to swing the ball on the power play.
In the absence of Jasprit Bumrah, Indian bowling lacked teeth in the Asian Cup. Now that Bumrah is back and the full team has been chosen, Rohit is happy with how the bowling department looks.
The captain was particularly impressed with Arshdeep Singh’s run in the Asian Cup.
“The way Arshdeep bowled was very impressive. The way he landed the Yorkers under extreme pressure in his first year of international cricket, it’s not easy.
“He’s a very smart guy and keeps it simple. We needed a left arm and he did well in IPL and then he came here and did well. We always wanted variety in our attack and we have it now.”