Following Virat Kohli’s sacking from One-Day International (ODI) captaincy on Wednesday, Rohit Sharma was named to replace him in the white-ball format.
The newly appointed skipper got off to a terrific start as India’s full-time T20I skipper last month, leading the team to a 3-0 victory over New Zealand in the first home series after the T20 World Cup.
In one-day internationals (ODIs), Rohit Sharma is expected to take the reins from Virat Kohli during India’s tour of South Africa which includes three-match ODI series starting in January.
Rohit Sharma pondered on India’s results in International Cricket Council (ICC) competitions over the previous few years and pinpointed the causes for India’s failures in various editions of the tournament ahead of the team’s departure for the trip also includes three Tests.
Despite a solid start to the season, the side had fallen short in the knockout rounds of the 2017 Champions Trophy and the 2019 One-Day International World Cup in New Zealand. India has failed to qualify for the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup, which took place earlier this year.
The Indian white-ball skipper identified a similar cause in all of India’s defeats in limited-overs tournaments: a lack of preparation for the match.
“In the Champions Trophy (2017), the 2019 World Cup, and even this World Cup, it was the opening portion of the game that cost us the game. That’s something I’ll take in mind,” Rohit Sharma stated on Xtra Time in response to the question.
“We have to plan for the worst-case scenario. We must prepare for the moment when the score is 10-3. That is the direction I want to go in the future. No written rule states that if you are 10/3, you cannot obtain 180 or 190 runs. I want the boys to prepare in the same manner,” Rohit Sharma said emphatically.
Rohit Sharma also said he wants his team to put themselves through their paces in the games going up to the T20 World Cup in 2022.
“If we’re playing in a semi-final and we’re 10/2 in the first two overs, what do we do? What exactly is the plan? It would be interesting to put ourselves in that circumstance and see how we react,” Rohit Sharma remarked.
“We’ve got a few games left before the World Cup to try and put ourselves through our paces. If we take a closer look, we can notice a pattern in all of the World Cup games that we have lost. The same thing happened in the two Pakistan games and the one New Zealand game that was played in the three ICC tournaments.
However, it can be possible again. The bowling is of great quality. It has occurred three times already, and I hope it will not happen a fourth time. We will, hopefully, continue to prepare for it,” Rohit Sharma said.
