Over the previous few weeks, his staff has remodeled into an unstoppable drive vanquishing everybody on its path to glory. But, in Wednesday’s World Cup semifinal towards New Zealand, India skipper Rohit Sharma additionally needs “luck to favour” his squad. “Now, the time has come that you need a little bit of luck as well to favour you, go your way. Obviously, we are going to be brave enough. And hopefully, fortune favours the brave,” Rohit mentioned on the eve of the big-ticket recreation.

Rohit mentioned the hosts won’t be required to make massive modifications with reference to their mindset and method simply because they’re headed into the semifinal conflict.

India have been probably the most dominant staff on this World Cup having gained all their 9 league matches to complete on the prime of the factors desk and can face the Kiwis on the Wankhede Stadium within the first semifinal.

“(In) the first (half) of the tournament, if you see, I think we chased the first five games and then the next four games we batted first. In terms of the areas that we wanted to cover, we have covered almost every bit of it,” Rohit advised the media in Mumbai earlier than India’s solely coaching session forward of the semifinal recreation.

“But again, like I said, we do understand the importance of this week, but for us I do not think we need to do anything different from what we’ve been doing in this tournament,” he mentioned.

The captain mentioned strain has all the time been part of the journey for them as Indian cricketers and will probably be no totally different once they take the sector for the semifinal.

“Be it a league match or semifinal, the pressure is always there in a World Cup match. We have handled it well from the first game to the last. The team has responded well,” Rohit mentioned.

“We are focusing on playing good cricket in the next two games. Pressure is always there on us as Indian cricketers. The need is to focus on the game and not on the pressure and challenges from the other side,” he added.

Rohit has respect for New Zealand whom he described as most likely the “most disciplined” aspect within the competitors, including that they’ve a high quality of studying the opposition very nicely.

“Whenever we have come up against New Zealand, (they are) probably the most disciplined team in terms of how they want to play the game. They play their cricket very smartly,” Rohit mentioned.

“They understand the opposition quite well. Having played with a lot of our players in different stages of their careers, different tournaments, they do understand the mentality of the opposition. It is the same for us as well,” he added.

Rohit acknowledged that whereas the strain has been there on his aspect to emulate the feat of the batches of 1983 underneath Kapil Dev and in 2011 underneath MS Dhoni, he mentioned the one facet that the present gamers are excited by is self-improvement.

“That is the beauty of this team. Half of the guys were not even born when we won our first World Cup. And then when we won our second World Cup in 2011, half of the guys were not even playing the game,” Rohit mentioned.

“For us, this current crop of players, they are very much into what is happening today (and) what can happen tomorrow. Those are the things they try and focus on. I do not see them talking about how we won the last World Cup (or) how we won our first World Cup.

“The focus is on how they will get higher as a participant, what they will convey to the staff and what are the issues they should enhance,” he said.

Rohit said even though India’s past record of failing at the semifinal stage lingers on in the back of the minds, they do not pay much attention to it.

“It is clearly at the back of your thoughts, you recognize what has occurred prior to now. But what has occurred prior to now, is the previous. What you are able to do at this time, what you are able to do tomorrow is what, you recognize, we normally speak about.

“I do not think there is much debate or much talk about what happened ten years ago or five years ago or the last World Cup as well,” he mentioned.

Rohit refused to be drawn into the talk to name his staff the “most dominant” Indian aspect ever.

“I do not think it will be the right thing for me to do that or say this is a dominant team. I think all (the) teams I was part of, I think they were quite dominant,” he mentioned.

Rohit mentioned India’s first purpose within the match was to qualify for the semifinals, however in an extended nine-match league stage by which they performed at 9 totally different venues, the staff needed to break down the tight schedule.

“Our first focus was to qualify from the league stages through to semifinals. And nine games is a lot of games – literally, two or three bilateral series to be honest. You have to break it down into games, different venues, you have to break it down into different strategies as well, different opposition you play,” he mentioned.

With batting underneath lights proving to be extraordinarily difficult right here on the Wankhede Stadium in all World Cup video games to this point, Rohit mentioned toss is just not going to be an element.

“I have played a lot of cricket here. These four or five games are not going to tell a lot about what Wankhede is. I do not want to talk too much about what Wankhede is. But I certainly believe that toss is not the factor,” he mentioned.

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