India captain Rohit Sharma on Friday said his batters will have to rely on their rich experience to counter Pakistan’s pace trio in their Asia Cup clash in Pallekele on Saturday.
Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf have the ability to run through any batting line-up and the Indians need to find a way to not lose early wickets.
“We don’t have Shaheen, Naseem and Rauf in our nets. We practise with the bowlers we have. They are all quality bowlers. We just have to use our experience to play them,” Rohit said on the eve of the game.
Rohit asserted that the tournament is not a fitness test and the team will have to bring their 'A' game to the table.
Pacers Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna, along with middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer, are returning to the ODI set-up following injury layoffs.
“By no means this (Asia Cup) is a fitness test. This tournament is played between the top six Asian teams. So, it’s a very big tournament.
“The fitness test, fitness camp…. all that was done in Bangalore. Now, we have to go ahead and get our game face on and see what we can achieve in this (tournament),” the skipper said.
Rohit said it’s good to have several players to choose from for an important tournament.
“I would probably have this kind of headache, rather than having no headache. It’s always nice to have a good pool of players to choose from, and to have such kind of competition as well.
“It’s going to be quite a challenging task for us to make the playing XI. But I want to make sure that we have no injury concerns and that will be a good sign for us to move forward,” said Rohit.
He did not divulge much on India’s combination. Most importantly, he didn’t say a word on where Ishan Kishan will bat if he makes the side in the absence of KL Rahul.
“Look, all sorts of combinations are available. Looking at how the game was played yesterday (Thursday, Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka), a bit of swing, a bit of spin, we saw everything. It is always challenging for the batters. Luckily, we’ve got experience in our batting line-up. I will let that experience come and play accordingly,” he said.
He said they need to bat according to the situation. “This is not a T20 game, so we need to apply a bit longer. So, the whole idea is to be aggressive and be an individual to allow them to play their game. A lot of them actually are quite experienced and have played in these types of conditions.
“So, they know exactly what sort of game plan and what kind of mindset they need to have when they’re playing against a quality opposition,” added Rohit.
