T20 World Cup 2024 | "Blows don't count when playing for country": Rohit Sharma

As the mega clash of the T20 World Cup 2024 India vs Pakistan is just a few hours away the Men in Blue skipper Rohit Sharma said that he has no idea what to expect from New Yorks pitch Even the curator doesnt know how it will behave added RohitThe T20 World Cup 2024 has so far seen some of the lowscoring games in New York During Indias T20 World Cup 2024 opening match against Ireland the Irish side was bowled out for 96 runs This forced the International Cricket Council to issue a statement acknowledging the inconsistent nature of the trackThis is not our home ground Yes we have played a couple of games here but a few of our training sessions have been washed out too And about the pitch well even the curator Damien Hough from Australia doesnt know how the pitch will behave It behaves differently on different days Rohit said in the prematch press meet ahead of Sundays blockbuster clashThe New York deck has offered extensive variable bounce and both Rohit and wicketkeeper batter Rishabh Pant suffered a few blows in the match against IrelandBut Indian captain Rohit feels that while playing for the country the players should be mentally tough to face such situations When you are playing at the highest level all these blows that you get I dont think it counts for anything We saw many examples when you play in places like South Africa Australia and you have to cross those hurdles he saidAlso ReadT20 World Cup 2024 IND vs PAK The clash beyond the bordersThe skipper then evoked the Gabba Brisbane memories to underline his point further The reason we won that Gabba Test match 2021 was because of our mental toughness The last day when we were batting on that pitch in Gabba we saw the variable bounce there and a lot of the batters got hit on their chest fingers These are the hurdles that you have to cross when you want to have success in international cricketRohit Sharma wants his teammates to put the team ahead of all these external factors Its the World Cup So nothing can get bigger than this Youre playing for your nation I think the blows that you get on your arm finger or on head I think that can be secondary Rohit saidYou need to put the teams cause first whether it is staying out there and battling it out and getting the job done for the team he exhortedAhead of the T20 World Cup 2024 match against Pakistan the Indian skipper said that the team sat and discussed the approach they should have on SundayI think playing good cricket holds the key no matter the opposition or the pitch We have had lengthy chats with individuals about what the game plan can be for the batters and the bowlers as wellThe teams from the subcontinent are not used to dropin pitches and Rohit asked his colleagues to take prudent decisions I said there is a lot of experience in our changing room So when you come across conditions like these I expect everyone to at least try and make good decisions Of course it can go on either side of it he saidBabar Azamled Pakistan faced a defeat in their T20 World Cup 2024 opener against the USA However the Indian captain did not read much into itThis is the speciality of T20 cricket Anything can happen anywhere In the last World Cup 2022 Pakistan lost to Zimbabwe But eventually they played the final Im sure theyll also think that they shouldnt make those mistakes in this match and play good cricket he saidAs Indias wicketkeeperbatsman Rishabh Pant has been promoted to number three in this T20 World Cup 2024 Rohit said he had made this call during the IPL 2024 itselfI had to look at Rishabh in just a few games in the IPL to make up my mind where hes going to bat in the World Cup When I saw him in the first half of the tournament I was really happy and clear that this is where hes going to bat And yeah with a player like him the kind of ability he has its always tough to find the right number to bat he saidRohit said Pants counteraggressive abilities against spinners will come in handy for the team deep into the T20 World Cup 2024 When we have three righthanders in the top four its nice to have him in the middle I think later on when we move ahead in the tournament the spin is going to play a big part where his counterattacking can come into the picture in a big way Since we dont have Yashasvi Jaiswal at the top we wanted somebody in the middle who can just go and play freely Rohit addedVirat Kohli has been in fine form coming into the T20 World Cup 2024 but Rohit was against leaning on any one player I think I dont want to rely on one or two individuals to win us the game I think everyone needs to chip in Speaking of Virat obviously he didnt play the Bangladesh warmup game But hes had enough training under his belt before this gameHe trained yesterday didnt have a great outing in the first game but were not going to look into too much of that The kind of experience he has playing all over the world playing in big tournaments nothing can beat that he saidSpeaking about the rivalry against Pakistan the Indian captain said it is just another game for him Nothing has changed from the last seven months because we played them in the Asia Cup and now the World Cup Earlier it was a different ball game because we used to play them maybe once in four years or two yearsWith PTI Inputs