'You can’t get too far ahead of yourself' - Rohit Sharma opens up on home team winning the World Cup

Speaking at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 – Captain’s Day event, exclusively broadcast on Star Sports, the official broadcaster of the tournament, India Captain Rohit Sharma spoke on the rain playing a spoilt sport in the warm-up matches. He said, “Not really. I mean, we were happy to get those days off, and looking at the heat and stuff like that, you know, like we’ve been talking about it. We’ve been playing a lot of cricket off late. We played the Asia Cup, we played about four games there, and then we played three games against Australia. That gives us an understanding of where everyone’s at and what we need to do as a team as well. So, I mean, in hindsight, yes,

I would have loved to play those two games but can’t really do too much when the weather is going to be like that. Apart from, you know, traveling from one part of India to the other part of India, you know there is nothing much we could have done. But overall, you know, quite happy with how we’ve come to this tournament, playing a lot of games playing some good cricket as well. So yeah, guys are looking really good at this point in time.”

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Pakistan Captain Babar Azam spoke on the support they have received after coming to India. He said, “To be honest, ever since we have landed in Hyderabad, the kind of hospitality that we have got, the way people have welcomed us, from the airport to the hotel, in the ground, even in our last match, the crowd that came, we found that very nice. We would have been happier if fans came from our country as well. And we will try in every match to get that support, in every stadium, so I’m looking forward to the game.”

Babar Azam spoke on returning to Indian conditions after five years. He said, “See there isn’t any pressure, it’s similar to Pakistani or Asia conditions. We have stayed here for a week, and whatever practice matches we have played, there isn’t much difference. The difference here is the boundaries are shorter, there is no margin for bowlers, if they don’t bowl with accuracy, the batsman can utilize that. So the runs will be more over here and you will have to play accordingly. But we will try to give our best on the day, apply our best game and execute it on the day.”

Rohit Sharma also spoke on the trend of the host nation winning the World Cup in the last few editions. He said, “Not thinking too much about it, honestly it has happened in the last three editions of the World Cup but all I can say is we going to try our best, give our best, and enjoy the tournament. That’s all I can say at this point in time because it’s a pretty long tournament and I do understand that you can’t get too far ahead of yourself. So, it’s important for us that we try and focus on one job at a time and then move on from there.”

Azam spoke on what the strength of the Pakistan squad is. He said, “I think our strength is our bowling. As you know we have been playing together for the last three years, most of the boys are the same. So I think our bowling is our strength.”