Claiming that the team has identified the reason for the loss in the first ODI against Bangladesh, Indian opener Rohit Sharma said that the bowlers should take wickets up-front to put pressure on the opposition in the must-win game, here tomorrow.
After conceding 307 runs in the Bangladesh innings, the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led side crashed to 228 all out and need to win the next match to stay alive in the three-match series. Rohit, who top-scored with a well-made 63 in the 79-run loss on Thursday, feels the bowlers should strike early.
"The wicket looks quite similar to the first game. generally the wicket here tends to play similar throughout. Tactically, we need to understand where we lacked in the first game. It's always important to take wickets up front that is something, which we will be focussing on. To get early wickets. It always builds pressure when you take early wickets that were missing in the first game," Rohit today said at the pre-match press conference.
"Their batsmen kept going after our bowlers. We need to get wickets early in the game, which puts a brake on momentum and slows the run-rate. We have quality bowlers and hopefully they can do better tomorrow," he added.
The much fancied India did cave in against the hosts, but Rohit insists the Men in Blue will come back with better planning in the next game.
"From our point of view, it's very important that we stick to our gameplan. We knew what went wrong in the first match. We will think about it and when we comeback and play the second ODI. It will be a different Indian side obviously we were trying our best in the first game as well but things didn't work out.
"We have got certain plans coming their way hopefully we will try and execute those plans and things will work in our favour then," said the Mumbai batsman.
With lack of partnerships and batsmen getting out to irresponsible strokes, India were guilty of self-destruction after going down post a 95-run opening stand. But Rohit brushes off the failure to chase the 300 plus score as a one-off instance.
"Now, if you look at the history India is the only team that has chased more than 300 many times. India is ranked number 1, when it comes to chasing 300-plus totals. I don't see why we can't chase 300. It was one of those incidents where we kept losing wickets in the middle," he said.
"When you are chasing big scores you need wickets in hand and need that momentum. We didn't get that momentum which is why we lost by 70 to 80 runs. It's always important to build partnerships, we couldn't do that," he added.
