Indian cricket is expected to be significantly impacted by Rohit Sharma’s aggressive, “risk-over-regret” batting style, which he established during the 2023 World Cup; after all, there will be another World Cup in roughly six months, and that presents an opportunity to influence Rohit’s batting style.
Indian cricket is expected to be significantly impacted by Rohit Sharma’s aggressive, “risk-over-regret” batting style, which he established during the 2023 World Cup.
Despite his unlucky finish as runners-up, he scored 597 runs at a strike rate of 126 ft and hit 31 record-breaking sixes. Suryakumar Yadav believes that the batters who come after him would attempt to “try and replicate the same thing” moving ahead.
After all, there will be another World Cup in roughly six months, and that presents an opportunity to influence Rohit’s batting style.
“What he’s done in the World Cup is one thing which will set an example,”
Suryakumar, India’s stand-in T20I captain, said of Rohit on the eve of the first match in Visakhapatnam.
“It was a completely different Rohit Sharma that you saw. I mean, he literally walked the talk; what we spoke about in the team meetings, he did the same thing on the ground. We are very proud of him. As a leader, he led by example and we’ll try and replicate the same thing.”
In his first-ever interview with the media as India’s captain, Suryakumar cut a laid-back figure. The press conference handling style of his Mumbai Indians captain and India ODI team wasn’t all that dissimilar.
“I am also young yaar!”
Suryakumar interjected with a smile when he was asked about captaining the “young” guys in the side.
If we’re going to go with the term “younger,” Suryakumar’s first words to the team as captain were to be “selfless” and to always put the team first, just like Rohit did throughout the World Cup campaign.
Rohit, Virat Kohli, and KL Rahul are not included in the squad having played their last T20 match in the World Cup last year.
Many IPL players who haven’t yet demonstrated their abilities at the greatest level make up the T20 team. Australia will be the toughest test for players like Rinku Singh, who participated in the Asian Games and made his debut in Ireland.
“What I told them [squad] when I met them in the afternoon today was let’s be very selfless when we go into the field,”
Suryakumar said.
“Because I’m a guy who doesn’t think too much about the personal milestones and instead thinks of the team’s goal. And I’ve always told them that you have to keep the team first and then whatever comes after that, you can take your call. And I’ve played with them a lot of times during the IPL and a few India games as well, so they know how I function. And it wasn’t that difficult and we are really excited to go about in the series.”
“Keeping the (2024) T20 World Cup in mind, all the games we are going to play are very important. I want us to be fearless.”
Who among Jitesh Sharma and Ishan Kishan will be the designated wicket-keeper batter in the team? “Ishan has been doing well, we wanted to keep continuity.
He has been doing really well for us, including the Asia Cup and World Cup, batting in different positions. Both of them are front runners. We will take a call tonight,”
Surya said with a laugh.
After an exhausting World Cup campaign, Rohit relaxes, while Suryakumar is in Visakhapatnam for a five-match T20 International series against Australia.
The fact that this is the same team that defeated India in the World Cup four nights ago must also not be helping. After the significant setback in Ahmedabad, Suryakumar characterizes the situation as “difficult” and “disappointing”.
“It is difficult. It will take time. I mean it can’t be that you get up the next morning and you forget everything that happened,”
he said.
“It was a long tournament and obviously we would have loved to win but then as you say when you get up in the morning, there’s always sunrise again, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. You have to forget it. Move on. It’s a fresh team. New boys, great energy, so we are really looking forward to this T20 series.”
Now that he is leading India as captain, Suryakumar finds comfort in continuing the style of cricket that India played during the World Cup, the epitome of which was Rohit Sharma.
“I mean, it is obviously a little disappointing. But in the end, when you look back at the journey, it was a really great campaign [for] every member – not only the players but also the support staff.
“All of India and all our families were very proud of the way each and everyone displayed their talent on the ground. That was the positive, the brand of cricket which we played throughout the tournament, and we can be very proud of that.”
Next year, there will be a new World Cup to win. To attempt and make it happen, the squad will include a lot of new players. However, the Rohit Sharma batting template is probably here to stay.
India’s squad: Suryakumar Yadav (Captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad (Vice-captain), Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (Wk), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dubey, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar
Australia squad: Matthew Wade (Capt), Aaron Hardie, Jason Behrendorff, Sean Abbott, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Glenn Maxwell, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa