The Indian skipper Rohit Sharma is excited to lead the side for the first time in a World Cup. He stated in an interview on the BCCI website, “Firstly, it’s a great honour to captain. This will be my first World Cup as a captain so I am pretty excited about that. 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 quite pumped up. We had a great prep in Perth”.
Rohit also talked about how India will go in the tournament and he said, “It’s a big event but at the same time, we have made a constant practice of not talking about it too much because it is important to be in the present and think about what you need to do on that particular day. That will allow us and help us to execute what we want to do on the game day.”
The right-hand batter also talked about the conditions in Australia. “Australia will be a different challenge. It was important for us to get used to the conditions. A few of the guys have not come to Australia before so we wanted to come here a little early and get used to the conditions. Even though it’ll be challenging, when I look at the whole group, they are pretty excited,” Rohit said.
The Men in Blue will be playing against Pakistan on October 23 and Rohit admitted the huge hype around the match.
“Whenever we play Pakistan, we know it’s going to be a blockbuster. People will want to come out and watch the match and feel the atmosphere. They would obviously want to enjoy the cricket as well but at the same time, the atmosphere in the stadium for the fans and the spectators, even people who are watching from home is pretty exciting. For us as players, of course it is a big game, the staring of our campaign but at the same time, we want to keep ourselves relaxed and focus on what we need to do as individuals because that is going to be the key for us. If individuals can keep themselves calm and composed in the game, we’ll get the results we are looking for,” he said.
He further added, “It’s been a while since we have won the World Cup. Obviously the motive and the whole thought process is to win the World Cup 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 can’t think about semis and finals from now onwards. You just need to focus on each team that you come against and try and do your best and prepare for that. Our focus will be to prepare well against each team and make sure that we move in the right direction”.