CHENNAI: When Rohit Sharma was appointed as the white-ball captain in 2021, tactical nous aside, one of the key reasons behind the decision was to try and bring in someone who knew how to win trophies. Rohit had made a habit of it, winning five as skipper of Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League. Make no mistake, India grew into one of the most dominant bilateral sides under Kohli. But the wait for an ICC trophy meant they were looking for a change.
Soon after he took charge, Rohit spoke about preparing for a 10/3 situation at the top. More importantly, he spoke about replicating the success for his franchise in his national colours.
That moment is here. As he is all set to lead India for the first time in an ICC knockout game, Rohit knows he is two good days away from fulfilling the dream.
However, he is keen on sticking to the process. He believes that the process they have followed for the last 12 months has prepared them for this occasion.
"I think it's important not to get ahead of ourselves, and we do understand, as well, that we have to play good cricket to win that game, which I think we've done in this tournament," he said on Wednesday ahead of the semifinal against England.
Indeed, India have played good cricket. They have two batters leading the batting charts and Arshdeep Singh has been the torchbearer of their pace attack.
But they have had their share of troubles as well. They have had issues with their fielding and their openers still haven't fired. Significantly, they haven't been able to bring the attacking brand of batting they had displayed in the powerplay throughout 2022.
Rohit doesn't seem to look at it as an issue. Instead, he thinks the team has adapted according to the conditions.
"I remember talking about coming out and playing fearlessly for a number of months now, but certainly in this tournament it has not happened quite well for us because looking at how the conditions are here, you just don't want to come out and swing your bat. It's not just us; you can see the numbers from the entire tournament of the powerplay overs from all teams. It's not been that great from all the teams," said the Indian skipper.
Which is where India will be tested in Adelaide for two reasons. First up, in what is a used surface, shot-making could get difficult as the game progresses -- the case during the Netherlands versus South Africa game. If that's not enough, England don't seem to be pulling their punches at all. Their captain Jos Buttler said that they would try and take the game head on as much as they can. Rohit would be hoping that he and his partner-in-crime KL Rahul can adapt to the conditions and use the short square boundaries in the first six overs.
Perhaps their biggest threat is likely to be Sam Curran and Adil Rashid, especially if Mark Wood doesn't get fit in time. The left-arm seamers have stepped up big time in this tournament and the leg-spinner might be brought in early on for the match-ups. Whether they can dominate that contest or not would be crucial.
The bottomline, however, comes down to whether Team India can come out on top in an ICC knockout game. In the last nine years, they have faltered when it mattered the most, losing five out of eight knockout games across five ICC events.
The Indian skipper was clear that failing in a knockout game needn't necessarily define a player's career. "We do understand when you play this kind of tournament, you have to break it into parts. We've done one part of it really well. There are two more parts to go," Rohit said.
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However, he knows what it is like to be on the wrong side of a result in an ICC knockout match. Rohit was there in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. In fact, he will remember being distraught at the Old Trafford dressing room balcony in 2019 when the law of averages caught up with him after a record-breaking tournament.
Come Thursday, Rohit would want to change that feeling.