Rohit Sharma, the captain, said on Tuesday that the Indian squad still needs to address some areas of concern, especially bowling, ahead of the forthcoming T20 World Cup after two identical series victories against “class sides” Australia and South Africa. Despite losing by 49 runs in the third and final T20 International match here on Tuesday, India defeated South Africa 2-1 in the series. In the previous series, they had defeated Australia by a same score.
“As a team, we said it at the beginning no matter what happens about the result, there’s always room for improvement. Even if we do well in all three departments, we want to keep getting better,” Rohit said at the post-match presentation. “Areas of concerns, we have to look at our bowling, what more options we can find in the powerplay, middle and death. “We were playing two quality sides, have to go back and see what better we can do. It will be challenging and we need to find answers, still working towards that.” The players, according to Rohit, need to be much clearer about what they hope to accomplish, and it’s his responsibility to make sure that occurs.
He explained that because several players of the World Cup-bound team have never visited Australia, they will go out early to become acclimated to the climate. “Lot of the guys haven’t been to Australia, which is why we wanted to go early. Play on some bouncy pitches in Perth and see what we can do there. Out of the 15, only 7-8 have been there before, so wanted to make an effort to go there early,” he said. “We’ve organised a couple of practice games.” In response to Jasprit Bumah’s back injury keeping him out of the T20 World Cup, Rohit stated, “Bumrah is a big miss, but there are a few guys in the reckoning. We’ll make the call once we reach Australia.”
