India skipper Rohit Sharma feels that his side needs to stay calm and composed to get the result they want in their 2022 Men's T20 World Cup opening match against Pakistan on Sunday, 23 October.
Just like any India-Pakistan match at a global event, there is a lot of hype and excitement around Sunday's Super 12 match between the cross-border neighbours.
"We know that this is going to happen -- whenever we play Pakistan, it's always a blockbuster. People want to come out and watch and feel the atmosphere, more than anything else. Obviously, they want to enjoy the cricket as well, but at the same time, the atmosphere in the stadium for the fans, the spectators, even people watching from home -- it's pretty exciting."
"And for us as players, of course, it's a big game -- we are starting off our campaign. But, at the same time, we want to just keep ourselves quite relaxed and focused on what we need to do as individuals because that is going to be the key for us. If individuals can keep themselves calm and composed during the game, we'll get the result that we're looking for," said Rohit in a video on bcci.tv.
Despite being touted as pre-tournament favourites for winning the T20 World Cup silverware in many previous editions, India haven't won the title after winning the inaugural edition of the showpiece event in 2007 in South Africa. In the 2021 T20 World Cup in UAE, India failed to qualify for the semi-finals.
Rohit stated that if India were to win the ongoing tournament, they need to get many things right and not think too early about reaching the knockouts.
"It's been a while since we have won the World Cup. Obviously, the motive and the whole thought process is to win the World Cup, but we know that we need to do a lot of things right to get there, so one step at a time for us."
"We can't think too far ahead. You really cannot think about semis and finals from now onwards, you just need to focus on each team that you are going to come against and try to do your best and prepare well against each team and make sure that we move in the right direction."
The 2022 T20 World Cup is also the first time Rohit will be captaining India in an ICC tournament.
Calling the leadership role a big honour, an excited Rohit added that the players are upbeat about doing something special in the tournament after acclimatising to the conditions through two practice matches against Western Australia XI in Perth and facing Australia in a warm-up match at Brisbane.
"World Cup is a World Cup, it's a big event. But at the same time, we have made a constant practice of not talking too much about it because we need to be in the present and think about what you need to do on that particular day and that will help us to execute what we want to do on game day."
"It's a great feeling, we have come off two (series) wins (against Australia and South Africa), but that was at home. Australia will be a different challenge. It was important for us to get used to the conditions. Few of the guys had never been to Australia before, so we wanted to come here a little early and get used to the conditions."
"Conditions will be challenging but that is the reason we came here early and as far as I'm concerned, when I look at the whole group, they are pretty excited."
After facing off against arch-rivals Pakistan at the MCG on 23 October, India will play their Super 12 matches on 27 October (against the first qualifier side from Round One at SCG), 30 October (against South Africa at Perth Stadium), 2 November (against Bangladesh at Adelaide Oval) and 6 November(against second qualifier side from Round One at MCG).
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