Rohit Sharma believes the Indian team can beat England in the upcoming tour

Rohit Sharma is one of the most successful captains in the Indian Premier League (IPL), he’s led the franchise to three titles and has been an undisputed leader ever since he was escalated to the position. Mumbai Indians entered IPL 2018 as defending but were off to a usual sluggish start. They also managed to take the campaign off in the second half but fell just short of a playoffs spot.

The Indian limited-overs opener now has to switch from IPL and get back to the international mode and serve the national team. He is a part of the Indian ODI and T20I squads for the tour of Ireland and England. However before preparing for the next big challenge Rohit has some time to take a break and be with his family.

“The IPL has just concluded so I want to take a small break to spend some quality time with my family,” Rohit told India TV during the show “Cricket Ki Baat”.

Talking about the England tour he said the team has played so much cricket there the team knows what exactly they need to do and so it isn’t a really daunting challenge.

Played a lot in England

“We have played a lot in England, so we don’t really need to change our practice style much for the tour,” he added.

The Men in Blue will play three ODIs and as many T20Is against the Brits. On their last overseas tour of South Africa, Virat Kohli & Co. defeated the hosts in both the limited-overs series’ 5-1 in the ODIs and 2-1 in T20I series. The confidence of having done well in tough conditions will help them do better in England as well.

“This tour will be very challenging for us. Having said that, we can defeat them in England as we have players, skills and an aggressive captain,” the Indian vice-captain added.

Last tour of England

On their last tour to England in 2014, they lost all the trophies while the Test series 3-1 in favour of the hosts, the scoreline was the same in ODIs and they won one-off T20I as well. But among the positives for India was the fact that they won the Lord’s Test which was a historic achievement for the team.

“We led India’s fightback last time we toured England. We managed to draw the first Test, won second and then lost the momentum. But we have a strong team now. Our team is performing well both in India and overseas and that too in all three formats.”

Gearing up for the WC 2019

All the teams this year will play a lot of ODIs and will try to figure out what is the kind of combination they want to go into the World Cup 2019 with.

“The World Cup is there in our perspective, but it is 10-11 months away. All we need right now is that we play good cricket, figure out best combinations in limited-over matches we play ahead of the World Cup.”

Here is the video of the interview

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