‘I am not looking at them as five spinners’ – Indian skipper Rohit Sharma sends defiant message before first match vs Bangladesh

Indian skipper Rohit Sharma addressed the media ahead of the opening game against Bangladesh on Thursday. The Men in Blue were questioned for taking three frontline seamers and five slower bowlers for the massive tournament. Rohit Sharma hit back at those claims when he spoke to the media. 

Indian skipper said, “We have two spinners and three all-rounders. I am not looking at them as five spinners. Jadeja, Axar, and Washington Sundar give us a lot of depth.” Apart from the three mentioned players, team India also have taken wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy. 

Rohit also said, “Many other teams carry six pacers when they have pace-bowling all-rounders. No one says they have one pacer too many. That’s their strength, and we focus on our strengths.” Jasprit Bumrah is the biggest absentee for the two time champions having been ruled out due to injury. 

‘Representing your country is paramount’ – Rohit Sharma 

When asked about the motivation of playing the tournament, Rohit said, “Going out there and representing your country is paramount. There will be times when we miss out a few people to injuries but we have other experienced cricketers in our lineup. Every ICC event is important. We have to do a lot of things right to hold the trophy."

The 37-year-old also heaped praise on Shubman Gill for his batting in the ODI format. Gill comes into the tournament as the vice-captain of the side and scored a century in the previous ODI match against England. “Shubman Gill is a Class player. His numbers are crazy and there is a reason why He has been moved as the Vice Captain of the team,” said India’s skipper. 

The media quizzed Rohit about the conditions in Dubai to which he replied, “I'm not very sure about the dew. It's quite unpredictable for all of us. We can't really think too much about that. If there are overcast conditions, we have the arsenal to combat that. I think it's about assessing the pitch as quickly as possible. We've played a lot of cricket here in the past. We have to adapt as quickly as possible and let your instincts take over based on the situation.”

The veteran Indian skipper ended by saying, “We didn't have a lot of games ahead of the Champions Trophy. Even then, we managed to tick off most boxes in the bilateral series against England. We wanted to do things and take off from where we stopped at the World Cup and bring that into the England series and now the Champions Trophy."