India skipper Rohit Sharma will be leading India for the first time in an ICC tournament. And the 35-year-old remembers that it’s been a long time since the senior Indian men’s team won a World Cup – 2011, while their last ICC trophy was in 2013.
Before these two triumphs, India emerged victorious in the inaugural T20 World Cup back in 2007, with Rohit Sharma himself smashing 30* off 16 balls against Pakistan in the final. Now, 15 years after winning the first T20 World Cup, Sharma is aiming for another title, in what is likely to be his last T20 WC.
Rohit Sharma announced his and India’s motive, loud and clear.
“It’s been a while since we won the World Cup. Obviously, the motive and the whole thought process is to win the World Cup,” Sharma said in a video posted by the BCCI.
“But we know we need to do a lot of things right to get there, so one step at a time for us. We can’t think too far ahead. You really cannot think about semis and finals from now onwards. You just need to focus on each team that you’re going to come up against and try and do your best and prepare for that. Our focus will be on that and to prepare well against each team and make sure that we move in the right direction.”
We are here to do something special: Rohit Sharma
Sharma was named the new T20I skipper last year after Virat Kohli stepped down and took the captaincy of the other two formats earlier this year. India played a couple of practice matches against Western Australia XI, winning one and losing one; then they defeated hosts Australia by only 6 runs in the first warm-up game, but their second warm-up game, against New Zealand, was washed out.
“It’s a big honour to be captain. This is my first World Cup as captain, so I’m pretty excited. It also gives us a great opportunity to come here and do something special. Every time you come for the World Cup, it’s a great feeling. The boys are pumped up; we had a great couple of practice matches in Perth. World Cup is a big event but at the same time, we have made a constant practice of not talking too much about it because it’s important to be in the present and think about what you need to do on that particular day. And that will allow us to execute what we want to do,” Sharma added.
India, who are the number 1 ranked T20I side, will kick-start their campaign this Sunday against Pakistan in front of a 1 lakh plus sold-out crowd at the MCG.
