Under the leadership of Rohit Sharma, Team India will be focusing on ending their title drought, eyeing a win in the upcoming T20 World Cup 2022, set to take place from October 16 to November 13 in Australia.
After sealing the inaugural edition of T20 World Cup under MS Dhoni in 2007, the Men in Blue have struggled to win any another title. They came close in 2014, but finished as runners-up and made it to the semi-finals in 2016.
And in last year’s tournament, India’s ordinary batting performances – against Pakistan and New Zealand – raised several eyebrows. Many experts termed India’s conservative approach as the sole reason for their exit from the global showpiece event.
However, current Indian captain Rohit thinks otherwise and has debunked claims that the team played old-fashioned cricket in the previous season of the 20-over showcase.
Rohit admitted that India haven’t got satisfying results in T20 World Cups but also mentioned that had they been playing conservative cricket, they wouldn’t be winning so many games leading into the multi-team event.
“We haven’t got the results in the World Cups, but that doesn’t mean we were playing bad cricket for so many years, I don’t agree that we were playing conservative cricket,” said Rohit ahead of the first T20I against West Indies that India won by 68 runs.
“If you lose an odd game in the World Cup, it seems we were doing things wrong, and we didn’t take chances. But if you look [at it], we won probably 80% [71%] of our games leading into the World Cup. If you are conservative, you won’t win these many games,” he added.