After losing the final of the World Test Championship — another failure in the ICC final — Rohit Sharma felt his team needed to think and plan differently for the ODI World Cup at home in October-November.
Not winning a trophy in the last 10 years despite consistently reaching the knockout stages will weigh heavily on any team and Rohit said his side was also “dejected”.
India’s last World Cup win came at home 12 years ago and with the ODI showpiece returning to the country, the pressure to win is immense.
ODI World Cup is coming up
“When the World Cup is held in October, we will try to play in a different way. We will try to give people freedom and not think that we have to win this or that match.
“We think this fight is important, this event is important and things are not happening. So obviously, we have to think differently and do things differently. Our message and focus is on trying to do something different,” Rohit said after the 209-run loss to Australia in the WTC final here on Sunday.
Rohit said the team has to deal with the hype created during the World Cup in India.
“We have told the boys to play freely. And if it seems so, then hit. It’s a simple message. Even if it’s Test cricket, T20 cricket or one day cricket, we don’t want to play under pressure.
“If you look at the innings, the way Gill and I started the second innings, our whole effort was to hit and play and put pressure on them. That’s why we were 60 runs in 10 overs. But if you play with the mindset that’s it. , you’ll probably get out.
“Then the comments and those who talk about the lapse of concentration. There is no lapse of concentration. We just want to play differently. We want to do differently.
“Obviously, we have played in many ICC tournaments and we have not won yet. So, our effort is to play in a different way and try to do something different,” he explained.
Transition
After the completion of a WTC cycle, talk about the transition is expected. Many of the players in the side are on the wrong side of 30s and going into the next edition, the team will need to take some tough selection calls.
Asked about building the team for the cycle, Rohit said: “Obviously, any tournament you play, you start looking at what possible you can do move ahead. Honestly, the game just got over. We haven’t really given too much thought to what we want to do in the future.
“There will be some conversations around that and we will see what is required and what is best, whatever brand of cricket we want to play in the next two years. And who are the guys who can play that role is that for us?” That’s the question we need to find the answers to. And there are many guys, there are many players who are really good in our domestic cricket as well. It’s just about finding them and giving them space, enough time to go ahead and do the work for us.
“I also want to see where the next World Test Championship final will be held. Based on that, we will decide what kind of players we want to prepare and what kind of cricket we want to play,” he said.
Experienced batters not getting runs cost us the game
India’s star-studded batting lineup including Rohit himself, Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Shubman Gill failed in both innings.
“Now we’ve played two finals. You can’t really teach them how to bat in the little time you have before the game. It’s all about preparing yourself and how you do that, it’s absolutely that you have.
“I don’t want to be too critical about it – the reason I say that is because the last time we were here in (2021), a lot of the senior batters really raised their hands and we were ahead in the series.
“Whether we played in Australia, we played in England, but yeah, like you said, this one-off game, if you’re not there, you can lose a game. You know, and that’s exactly what happened. We in honestly want to give it our best shot.
“Everybody prepared really well in the little time we had, that’s all you can do. But yeah, when you’re in the top six, you know, five or six batters that are pretty experienced that have played in these conditions before and can. T go on to get big runs and that is what probably cost us the game. But I won’t call it a lapse of concentration,” said Rohit.
The captain said his team should have done better in the first innings and the loose shots played by the batters in the second innings cost them the game.
‘There were only one or two camera angles, IPL had 10’
Cameron Green took a spectacular catch to dismiss Shubam Gill in the second innings but with the ball close to the ground, replays were inconclusive. Gill was awarded the TV umpire but Rohit said the officials should have given more time to the decision.
“I just felt disappointed with – not enough. The third umpire should have seen a few more replays of how the catch was made. I think he saw it three or four times and he was convinced of it. It’s not about whether it was given or not , you need to have proper and clear information about anything.
“It’s just not about the catch, it can be about anything. That was, that is something that I was a little disappointed with – the decision was made quite quickly. When you get a catch like that, you need to be more than 100 percent sure because it’s the final and we’re in an important stage of the game, so that’s a bit disappointing for me.
“And more camera angles should have been shown. Only one or two camera angles were shown. We have 10 different angles in IPL. I don’t know why in a world event like this, there is no ultra motion . that was seen or any kind of zoomed image was seen,” Rohit added.
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