India focus on role fulfillment over individual success

India will meet England in the second semi-final of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 in Guyana.

After a couple of close run-ins in the inaugural group stage, India's T20 World Cup campaign picked up pace during the Super Eights. In improved batting conditions in the West Indies, the team maintained a positive approach, posting and defending formidable totals against good bowling line-ups.

For India skipper Rohit Sharma, this brand of fearless cricket was important and the batter stressed that T20 cricket was a format where individual performances mattered little.

'Yes, it's important to play without fear. And we have created this environment in the team for the past few years,' Rohit told reporters in India's press conference prior the England semi-final. 'That we don't have to think much (about strategies) and play without thinking. This format is like that now.

Individual scores and individual brilliance don't matter that much. If someone does it, it's good, but you shouldn't focus on it. I think the game that we played in Bangladesh was the perfect game.'

Rohit further dissected his example and stressed that India’s focus as a side was on individual players looking to fulfill their role in a specific stage of the game.

'As a captain I really like that, because I think the role we talk about – everyone played their role, and still not one or two people made 70-80 runs. One made 50, and then the other 6 players made 23-30 each and made us reach 198,' he added.

'That is because the role that we have given each player – he did his role in his phase. That's when we reached that score.

Our focus is not on the individual score, it is on the role, how you will play the role.'

Though unbeaten in the tournament, India's Achilles heel in their recent ICC tournament appearances has been the knockout contest. They lost in the semi-final of the 2022 edition of the Men's T20 World Cup while they've also suffered losses in the finals of the ICC World Test Championship and the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup last year.

Well aware of this history, Rohit, however, stressed that his side wanted to take this as yet another game, and not take added pressure that can impede on-field performance and decision making.

'We want to treat this game as another game that we have played in this tournament,' Rohit said. 'Everyone knows in the back of their mind it's a semi-final. But you don't want to keep talking about it again and again and again. And not to think about what has happened in the past.

Sometimes if you think too much, sometimes you then will not be able to make the decisions that you want to make on the field. So, I think it's important that we stay clear in our mind what we want to do.

We have had enough conversations with the players, what is expected out of each one of us. So, it's time now to just rely on the individual instinct and then take the game forward.'

Source: ICC