'India's experienced batting' vs 'Pakistan's powerful bowling' - Captain Rohit Sharma upbeat ahead of T20 WC opener

Rohit Sharma believes in giving his players a secured environment but the India captain is open to making changes to his combination in every match, if required, and his players are "ready for it".

India have fielded 29 players in the last one year in T20Is. The changes have to be made either due to injuries or because of workload management.

"I certainly want to keep my mind open on playing eleven. We don't want to get stuck with one particular way of making your playing eleven. We want to be open about it," Rohit answered a query from PTI during media interaction on the eve of the Pakistan game.

"If we have to change one or two players in every game, we've got to be ready for it," he was crystal clear.

Rahul Dravid is a huge supporter of match-ups and it seems that the skipper has bought into the coach's idea and hence the changes will be based on that.

Match-Ups in cricketing terminology is introducing a particular player --batter or bowler -- against a specific player of the opposition team.

"That's how we have prepared all our guys, as well. The message was given long before we came here that if we need to change one or two players for the match-ups for what sort of conditions we are playing in, guys will be ready for it."

"So, it's not a last-minute thing where we are changing the players. This is the talk that has happened in the team long way back, and guys are ready for it."

It is not a plan conceived in haste, insists the skipper. While chopping and changing can hurt confidence of players, Rohit stressed on the fact that since he took charge, he has tried to instill a sense of security amongst the core group and give them freedom to express themselves.

"I have tried to give players security and tell them that 'aap hi who bande ho jo humare liye yeh kaam kar sakta hai' (You are the player who will do this particular job for us). That helps them to express themselves," he added.

But Rohit also agreed that a good team is a combination of both homework and at times letting the instincts take over in match situations.

"To be honest, it's a bit of both (match-ups and instinct), actually. You have got to be instinctive, as well. Sometimes you just have that feeling that this is the guy who will do the job for you.

But he feels that if someone is bowling well irrespective of match-ups, then a skipper should go by instincts.

"Sometimes you just feel that this guy is bowling pretty well, you need to just get him to play the game; he's in good form. On the other side, you will look at the matchups, as well. It's a bit of both. On that given day, whatever we feel is the right playing 11, we will go by that. " The skipper said that although a lot of international cricket hasn’t been played in Australia in October, they have still managed to collect a bit of data.

"You have to look at the match-ups, as well. We have been going through a lot of numbers all these days about how people have been successful in Australia."

"Although it's a different time, it was important for us to get some kind of data around what happens in October-November in Australia and what are the kind of people who have been successful here."

Playing in used pitches in later games

It will be a fresh pitch where India will take on Pakistan since it will be the first game of the day.

However, India will play the second match of the day in Sydney (The Netherlands), Perth (South Africa), Adelaide (Bangladesh) and in Melbourne again (Zimbabwe).

"So, we will be keeping a close eye on those games, which luckily for us starts before us. We will have a fair idea of what sort of pitch it is, what is the right score and things like that. It does make a difference, but eventually I feel whatever the pitches are, you've just got to play good cricket, get the right players in and try and win that game."

Why India chose Perth as training base?

The Indian team for the first time is playing a T20 World Cup which is not closely preceded or followed by the cash-rich IPL and that gave them time to train for at least 15 days in Australia.

The team trained a week in Perth and then another five days in Brisbane where one warm-up game got washed out.

"A lot of the guys are not used to playing in foreign conditions, be it Australia, South Africa, England, New Zealand, and all those countries.

"We knew where the World Cup was happening, and we made a very conscious decision of going to Australia a little earlier than expected because we were supposed to play the series against South Africa which unfortunately we all had to miss to prepare for this big event," Rohit explained the rationale behind the decision.

"That is something that was happening in the background right after the World Cup. We know how key the preparation is." But why Perth? That was interesting as being closer to the Indian time zone, it became easier for players to acclimatise quickly.

"I thought Perth was the right time for us to start. Obviously, the time difference is not too much, also, so you can easily get acclimated to the time zone, and that was also one of the reasons," he said.

"I thought the way we went about the entire Perth leg was good for us. We could specifically focus on certain things when it comes to batting, and the bowlers could work on certain things," he concluded.