Rohit Sharma played a key role with the bat as India registered their first victory in the ongoing T20 World Cup with a 66-run win over Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday (November 3).
Opening the innings, Rohit slammed 74 off 47 balls to help India pile up a massive 210/2 in 20 overs and the Men in Blue later restricted Afghanistan to 144/7.
After his Player-of-the-Match effort, the Indian vice-captain rued that the team couldn’t play with this approach in the first two games against Pakistan and New Zealand.
“The approach was different. I wish it was in the first two games as well but it didn’t happen. But that can happen when you are on the road for a long time. Decision making sometimes can be a problem and that’s exactly what happened in the first two games,” Rohit said at the post-match press conference.
He then explained how decision making can be affected if the mind is not fresh.
“The amount of cricket that is being played and amount of cricket we are playing, every time you step onto the field, you have to make the right decision,” Rohit said.
“You need to ensure that you are fresh in terms of mental aspect. May be that’s the reason why we didn’t take some good decisions. When you play a lot of cricket, these kind of things keep happening. You need to get away from the game and freshen up your mind.
“But when you play the World Cup, your full focus should be on the World Cup, you should know what you need to do and what you don’t,” he elaborated.
Amid the harsh criticism of the team, Rohit further cited that two bad games can’t make a side poor.
“It didn’t happen in two games but that doesn’t mean that we have become bad players overnight. If you have two bad games, it doesn’t mean that all players are bad, those who are running the team are bad, you reflect and you comeback and that’s what we did in this game,” he said.
“In these situations, you have to stay fearless and not think about what is happening elsewhere. We are a very good team but just that we were not great on that particular day against Pakistan and also against New Zealand. The game that we played sums it up that this is what we get when we play fearlessly,” he concluded.
(With PTI inputs)
