Rohit Sharma: We weren’t playing conservative cricket

Captain Rohit Sharma believes the new fearless approach adopted by India in the shortest format will result in occasional failures but disagrees that they were playing ldquoconservativerdquo cricket during last yearrsquos T20 World Cup in UAERohit said the new approach provides more freedom to players which has yielded success after the disappointing World Cup campaign where India were eliminated in the league stageldquoWe didnrsquot get the result from the last World Cup but that doesnrsquot mean we played bad cricket all these years and I donrsquot agree we were playing conservative cricketrdquo Rohit saidlsquoWon 80 per cent of our gamesrsquoldquoIf you lose one or two matches in the World Cup it feels like we were doing this and that we were not taking our chances Itrsquos not like that If you look at the overall games that we have played leading into the World Cup we won 80 per cent of our gamesldquoIf we were conservative how can we win so many matches Thatrsquos fine that we lost in the World Cup didnrsquot qualify but that happens That doesnrsquot mean we are playing with fear not playing openlyAlso Read WI vs IND Sanju Samson replaces KL Rahul in T20I squadldquoLately we havenrsquot made any changes we are doing the same things but the players have been given some freedom to go out and play their own game Play openly no need to take any undue pressure if you play freely performances will showrdquo Rohit said change is the only constant and the Indian team and its fans too have to move on with timeldquoThere are bound to be occasional failures in the way we are playing cricket now results will not be in our favour but there is no problem in it because we are trying to learn something and trying something differentlsquoScope for mistakesrsquoldquoSo there is scope for mistakes but that doesnrsquot mean the boys are bad the team is bad Itrsquos just that we are trying to do something new Everyone has to change with time we are changing so I think people sitting outside also need to change their thinkingrdquoSamson replaces KLWicketkeeperbatter Sanju Samson on Friday replaced an indisposed KL Rahul in Indiarsquos T20I squad for the ongoing series against the West Indies the BCCI said ldquoKL Rahul was earlier named in the squad and his participation in the T20I series was subject to fitness The batter tested positive for COVID19 last week and has been advised rest by the BCCI medical teamrdquo BCCI secretary Jay Shah said in a statement Meanwhile India were 883 in 10 overs against WI in the first ODI here at the time of going to pressThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever