India couldn’t perform well in the recent Asia Cup in UAE while India skipper Rohit Sharma wants his players to get out of their comfort zone and investigate new things about their game in the six home games against Australia and South Africa ahead of the mega event in Australia.
India couldn’t perform well in the recent Asia Cup in UAE while India skipper Rohit Sharma wants his players to get out of their comfort zone and investigate new things about their game in the six home games against Australia and South Africa ahead of the mega event in Australia.
Rohit feels players can now bear to expand their ‘limits’ without the tension of selection. The management will be given rest to the likes of Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Arshdeep Singh over the six games however overall it will have a full crew available to it.
“I wanted to bring security to the team that is why we announced the team for both the series before the World Cup (Australia and South Africa). In Asia Cup also we less had the same team,”
said Rohit ahead of the series opener against Australia.
“In these six games, we want to keep trying what we can achieve with different styles. It is all about going out and trying to find ways of exploring ourselves but there is no limit to trying new things. You can extend yourself in so many directions to achieve so many things for the team.”
Virat Kohli went out of his comfort zone during the Asia Cup and played a rare sweep shot and Rohit wants even the bowlers to push their limits.
“We will keep encouraging people to be more expressive. For example, for someone who doesn’t play a reverse sweep, can he play that and see if he can do it right? Someone can hit down the ground, things you are not comfortable doing, you do that and see what happens.
“When you go into 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.
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 that. That is something we spoke about quite clearly at the start of my (captaincy tenure) and everyone is comfortable with that. At the same time, we know our second line of defense if we are in trouble. We spend a lot of time talking about these things,”
he said.
“Guys are very clear if we are 10 for three how we need to bat. If we are 50 for no loss, how do we need to bat? These have been discussed at length, it is just about executing now.”
“If you see our Asia Cup performance as well we posted par plus or par scores in every game except the one game against Sri Lanka where we got 173 which was also a good score,”
Rohit said.
“In Super 4s we had close games against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it could have gone either way. You need a bit of luck as well. Hopefully, we will get that in the World Cup.”
Talking more about the batting style, Rohit said:
“This approach of ours has given us a lot of trust that we can go out and play like that. It is a great sign.
“We will have another review meeting of the last 10 months after these six games and will see what we need to do in World Cup,”
said Rohit.
“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.
“He is a very smart guy and keeps things simple. We needed a left-arm seamer and he has done well in IPL and then he came here and has done well. We always wanted variety in our attack and we have that now.”