India captain Rohit Sharma performed down hype round Saturday’s Asia Cup blockbuster in opposition to Pakistan, saying their focus is on utilizing the event to fine-tune their preparations for the house World Cup later this 12 months.
The subsequent spherical of cricket’s most emotionally charged rivalry will happen in Pallekele between the arch-rivals, who play one another solely in multi-team occasions due to their soured political relations.
They might face one another as much as thrice in two weeks through the course of the event, together with within the September 17 ultimate, and Rohit appeared decided to not get carried away by emotion.
“Rivalry is there for people to talk about. For us, we don’t want to look into all those things,” the opener deadpanned within the pre-match press convention on Friday.
“What we, as Team India, want to focus on is we have an opposition to play tomorrow, how we can perform (well)… rather than looking at all sorts of other things, which eventually is not going to help you.
“What goes to assist us is – preserve doing the best issues on the pitch and make the best selections that take us ahead as a group.”
The six-team tournament assumes more importance for India as they chase their first global title in more than a decade at the home World Cup in October-November.
“We’re right here to tick numerous containers,” mentioned Rohit.
“When we end the event, hopefully we will obtain that and go into the following one and half months of the World Cup.”
The match could prove a battle between India’s formidable batting and Pakistan’s fiery pace attack led by Shaheen Afridi.
“They are a wonderful facet, they’ve carried out rather well in the previous couple of years – be it within the T20 World Cup or within the 50-overs format,” Rohit said of Pakistan, currently the top-ranked one-day team in the world.
“You do not simply grow to be the primary facet like that, it takes lot of arduous work. They have been taking part in as a unit and it will be an incredible problem for us dealing with them.
“We have prepared well, hopefully we can execute our plans well tomorrow.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
