Team India are having a great time in the ongoing T20 World Cup Down Under. They finished the Super 12 stage at the top with 8 points.
The Men in Blue opened their campaign with a thrilling four-wicket win over arch-rivals Pakistan and followed it with a comprehensive 56-run victory against Netherlands. While India suffered a five-wicket defeat versus South Africa, they bounced back to register wins against Bangladesh (by 5 runs) and Zimbabwe (by 71 runs).
Now, the Rohit Sharma-led side is gearing up to take on England in the second semi-final at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday (November 10).
On the eve of the big game, India skipper Rohit said one bad game in a knockout cannot define a player even though he understands the significance of these games.
"I think knockout games are important. We do understand that. It's a simple logic to it, knockout games, because you get to play only once and there's only one opportunity to do well in that knockout game," said Rohit in the pre-match press conference.
"But for us, I think, not just for me but for the players, what they've done in their entire career doesn't define them by just one knockout game. The entire year you work so hard to get where you want to and to do well in whichever format you play. So that one particular game is not going to decide that," he added.
According to Rohit, one must be ready for any situation considering the fickle nature of T20 cricket.
"I think it's important we do understand the importance of knockout, but at the same time, it's also important to realize and understand what sort of effort you put in the entire year to come to that stage," said Rohit.
"For us as players, as a team, I think we can pride ourselves to be here at this point in time because we saw two of the quality teams which were knocked out, and anything can happen in this format. For us, I think to be here at this point in time, I think we can take a lot of credit and pride ourselves in where we have come," he added.
Calling it just a phase of the tournament, Rohit said: "But again, it's just a phase. It's just one phase of the tournament. We know there are two crucial phases of it. We do understand when you play this kind of tournament, you have to break it into parts. We've done one part of it really well. There are two more parts to go."
"But tomorrow is going to be one part of it where we have to play well to get the result. But yeah, specifically to talk about that, I think it's important to understand that knockout games are important, and you do well, it gives you that immense confidence. But we do not forget what has happened in the past, what the players have done in the past. All the performances that they've put in for the team over the year, that one game cannot be dictating that," he remarked.
Further talking about the same, the Indian captain said: "I think there's a lot of effort that goes into putting ourselves and playing for the country and getting those efforts, getting those runs, getting those wickets, so I really don't believe that one bad game in the knockout can truly define what kind of player you are."
(With NDTV inputs)
