India's batting mainstay Rohit Sharma said on Wednesday that Australian cricketers might use sledging as a weapon during their high-voltage cricket World Cup semi-final match on Thursday but hoped they wouldn't cross the line of tolerance.
"It's part of the game, I guess. I just hope they don't cross the line. We all know as professional cricketers there are boundaries which we don't need to cross. Yeah, as long as it's within those boundaries, we're fine," Rohit said at a press conference.
There have been instances in the Test series Down Under where the Indians and Australians were involved in repeated on-field verbal confrontations.
Rohit Sharma was himself involved in an altercation with left-handed batsman David Warner during the series.
"It's good. We must have noticed this throughout the series when we played the Test matches against Australia. No team backed down. Both the teams were right in each other's face," he said.
Among India's current playing 11, eight were involved in the Champions Trophy triumph in 2013 and three were present in the 2011 World Cup victory. Rohit said the experience will help as they know how to win big games.
"We know how to play big games. We've been part of it even in Champions Trophy and also in 2011. We bring the best out of everyone during those big matches, so, yes, we look forward to this and hopefully it will be an exciting contest," the right-handed batsman said.
The 27-year-old added that, looking at the earlier matches, the wicket at Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) will surely aid spin which might help their spinners.
"Of course, if you look at the history of SCG it gives a lot of turn to the spin bowlers and spinners have actually come out and bowled really well. If you see the Test matches also we've played against Australia, spinners played a huge part. So I feel if it does, we've got the spinners to do it," he said.
India had a disappointing summer in Australia when they lost the four-match Test series 0-2, followed by an even more disastrous One-Day-International (ODI) tri-series, where they failed to win even a single match.
When asked whether Australia enjoyed an edge over them considering the successful summer, Rohit said their poor performance is something of the past and the Indian team is currently playing some excellent cricket.
"No, I don't think it matters because we're playing some different cricket now. So, what has happened has happened, we have left right there. We never want it to carry into the World Cup. We always spoke about this," the right-handed batsman said.
"We know how important the World Cup is, and we have actually come out and played really well and played some good cricket. So we just want to continue just a matter of two more errands."
The Mumbai batsman was excellent against Bangladesh in the quarter-finals scoring 137 runs.
Speaking about his batting, he said: "I try to keep it very simple. I just bat. I don't think about balls. I don't think about runs. Because the only thing that goes into my mind at that point in time is one batter to stay till the end."
