Rohit Sharma opens up about inclusion of young players in T20I format

Ahead of the India-Bangladesh T20 match to be held in Rajkot, India's stand-in T20 skipper, Rohit Sharma addressed a press conference where he stated that India has been trying a lot of new players to make them ready for the ODIs and Test matches. He also reiterated that T20 is the format where Rohit Sharma himself and a lot of other players in the team started to play in the Indian cricket team. He said that these young players need to grow and learn as team India wants their bench strength to be as strong as the playing squad. Apart from this, he also spoke about the pitch at Rajkot and said that it has a good track to bat.  

Rohit Sharma on including young players 

Talking about the induction of young, new players into the T20I format of cricket, Rohit Sharma said, “You need to understand that this is the format where we are trying a lot of players. The key players are not involved, so we are trying a lot of younger players, who are there in the lot, sitting on the fringe. So, probably one of the reasons to include these younger players here in this format is because in the other formats we have our entire squad playing the game and we get what we want from that particular squad. But this is the format where we can try new players and we can get them ready for other formats. This is the time for them to come out and express themselves so that they are ready for ODI and Test cricket".

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“We have seen a lot of players who have emerged from this format and gone on to play ODI and Test. So, we want our bench strength to be as strong as possible. This is probably the reason why you see so many new guys coming into the fray and playing this format. Having said that, it does not mean that we don’t want to win the games, we have to win games that is the first priority, but again these guys will learn. This is how I and others in the team started with this format then played ODI and went on to play Test cricket. That is how it happens and as I said that we want our bench strength to be very very strong, thus this remains the platform to try out new guys,” he added. 

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Rohit Sharma on Rajkot's pitch

Apart from this Rohit Sharma spoke about the pitch in Rajkot at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium and said that "By the look of it, the pitch looks good. Rajkot has always been a good track to bat, and it does offer some assistance to the bowler also. So, it will be a good pitch and will be better than what we saw in Delhi. I don't think we need to think about what happened there (Delhi). Of course, I think the combination that we played in the last game was based on the pitch, so we will see the pitch again today and decide what we need to do in our bowling line up and our batting line up looks good so I don't think we need any change there. We will analyze the pith and see if there is any difference and based on that we will try to see what we can do as a team." 

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