Asia Cup: Would try to take the game on, but important to read situations, conditions well, says Rohit Sharma

India captain Rohit Sharma said the team is eager to take the attacking route but wants to read situations and circumstances for applying themselves a little longer in the 50-over format. The Sri Lanka-Bangladesh Asia Cup match at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium provided a lot of help to the bowlers.

The pace bowling trio of Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, and Haris Rauf from Pakistan will pose a challenge for Rohit as well as other Indian batters Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, and Ravindra Jadeja in India’s Asia Cup opener against their archrivals.

“All sorts of combinations available looking at how the game was played yesterday. We saw a bit of swing, spin and everything and that will always challenge the batters. Luckily, we have got experience in our batting line-up, and I will let them play accordingly as per their experience.”

“Yes, I have said that we would try to take the game on, but it’s important to read the situations and conditions well because, in the 50-over format, you have to apply a little more than 20-over cricket and apply for a little longer.”

“Being aggressive is important but at the same time, the players will be allowed to play their game and let them make their decisions in the middle because a lot of them are quite experienced and have played in this kind of conditions. So, they know exactly what sort of gameplan and mindset they need to keep and prepare for against every opposition,” said Rohit in the pre-match press conference.

Iyer is back from India’s most recent ODI series against the West Indies from July, along with Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami, and Prasidh Krishna who all overcame lower back injuries. Rohit acknowledged that selecting the starting lineup would be a difficult challenge for the team management and hoped that injuries wouldn’t affect the team until the World Cup at home.

“I would probably be in this kind of headache rather than having no headache. It’s always nice to have a good pool of players to choose from; it also bodes nice for the team environment to have such kind of competition as well and so many players being available.”

“I know that when all these guys are available and are at their best, it becomes quite a challenging task for us to be in the playing eleven and it’s good to have such kind of competition and headaches around.”

“I hope that all the 15 and 18 we have now here stay fresh and fit throughout the tournament and the next two months. But speaking of Asia Cup, we hope that there are no injury concerns and shouldn’t be, as that will be a good sign for us moving forward.”

Speaking about his individual batting strategy, Rohit said his goal is to extend the team’s innings and maintain a balance in terms of taking risks. Rohit has amassed 1179 runs in 29 games since dominating the 2019 Men’s ODI World Cup run charts with 648 runs and five hundreds while also scoring three hundreds and six fifties at a strike rate of 101.02, up from 89.97 for his whole career.

“It is very important to use that experience of playing cricket for so many years now. I will be trying to do what the team needs from me. I have played cricket with a very high-risk approach in the last two years. I have to balance between when to take a risk and when the risk has not to be taken when it comes to ODIs.”

“As a top-order batter, it’s my very big responsibility to set the platform for the team and get the team to a good situation. I will try that I won’t want to throw away my wicket easily when in rhythm. Haven’t thought much about that while playing in the last one and a half years as I played with a lot of risks. But bringing that balance around risk is necessary here, and it’s required, so will try to get it.”

-IANS