"You Want Your Best Players To...": Rohit Sharma's Clear Take On Workload Management Ahead Of Long Test Season
India skipper Rohit Sharma on Tuesday asserted that there is no need to devise a new strategy in the upcoming series against Bangladesh
India skipper Rohit Sharma on Tuesday asserted that there is no need to devise a new strategy in the upcoming series against Bangladesh, despite their impressive recent triumph over Pakistan and the presence of express pacer Nahid Rana in the visitors' ranks. Bangladesh defeated Pakistan 2-0 in their first win over the latter in a Test series but Rohit did not read too much into it. "Every team wants to beat India. They take some pride in it. Let them have fun. Our job is to think about how to win the matches. We don't ponder about what the opponent team is thinking about us," said Rohit in the pre-match press meet here.
"India has played cricket against almost every top team in the world. So, there's no need to create a whole different strategy," added Rohit.
The Mumbaikar was also not worried about pacer Rana, who can comfortably touch 150 clicks, but, rather than an individual, Bangladesh team as a whole remained his focal point.
"See, there will be a couple of new guys in the side. But all you can do is to think about them and move forward. The same would be the plan against Bangladesh, i.e. to focus on our gameplay," he noted.
In that context, Rohit remarked that managing the workload of bowlers, particularly that of the pacers, will remain a top priority for him as the season contains a total of 10 Tests, including a high-value Border-Gavaskar series against Australia from November.
"You want your best players to play all the games, but that's not possible because there is so much cricket. It is not only Test cricket, there is a T20 cricket happening in the middle of the Test series as well. So, you got to manage your bowlers around it.
"We have laid out some plans, as to how we are going to manage these bowlers. But yeah, we have done that pretty well. Even when we played against England, we managed to give (Jasprit) Bumrah one Test match off."
The captain was also excited to see some fresh talents like Yash Dayal and Akash Deep, both of them are part of the Indian team here, emerging and doing well in domestic competitions like Duleep Trophy.
"We have got a lot of bowlers who are there for us. You know, we saw the Duleep Trophy, like some exciting prospects there as well. So, yeah, I am not too worried about, you know, (because) the kind of bowlers who are waiting in the wings for us," he added.
India Cricket Team
Bangladesh Cricket Team
Rohit Sharma
Jasprit Bumrah