‘Pressure is on India to perform’
After being defeated by seven wickets in the first of the three T20Is, India would like to regroup and bounce back when they meet Bangladesh today at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot.
It was India’s bowling department that had failed to keep Bangladesh batsmen at bay in the Sunday’s game as the Tigers, led by Mushfiqur Rahim’s brilliant unbeaten 43-ball 60, romped to the victory with seven wickets and three balls to spare.
However, stand-in skipper Rohit Sharma thought that it was not the failure of any particular department that had cost the hosts the game.
“Pressure is just on the team to perform, as simple as that. Not a particular department. You’ve lost as a team; you’ve not lost as a bowling unit. So, the focus will be on the team. Collectively, all of us need to come together. The batsmen need to get the job done; the bowlers need to come out and take those crucial wickets. That will be the idea. We are not focusing on any individual departments. Because we lost as a team, not as individuals,” Rohit told reporters yesterday.
The 32-year-old, who was confident that the pitch in Rajkot would be a lot better than that in Delhi, said that there might be a few changes to his squad today considering pitch conditions.
“We will see the pitch again today [Wednesday] and we will think what we need to do in our bowling line-up. Our batting looks good, so I don’t think there are any changes we need to make in our batting. But we’ll analyse the pitch, and based on that we’ll see what we can do as a team.”
The opener also mentioned that India would go into today’s game with a reformed approach.
“I cannot tell you the strategy but what I can say is that there will be changes in our approach. In the last match, we played according to the pitch. We were playing the way the pitch was reacting. But if the pitch here is good, our approach will be different as well in both bowling and batting.”
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