India vs West Indies: New India captain Rohit Sharma wants clarity on roles, more adaptability

Rohit Sharma on Saturday stressed on the need to be adaptable over the next 20 months leading up to the 2023 World Cup. “There is not a lot that we need to change. We just need to adapt to different situations of the game that is being presented in front of us,” said Sharma in his maiden interaction as the full-time ODI skipper. “We have played good ODI cricket over the course of the last few years. Suddenly the loss of a series (in South Africa) doesn’t mean that there is a panic that we need to create. (There are) certain understandings and learnings that we need to take into our game... the South Africa series was a great learning for us as to what we didn’t do collectively as a team,” he added at a virtual press conference ahead of the first of the three ODIs against West Indies.

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India’s template is preserve first, launch later. It’s a very 80’s out-of-syllabus approach to ODIs, especially if the top three perish early or get stuck. Post the 2019 World Cup, India’s ODI record has been modest. They have lost 12 of the 24 games played with one being a washout.

Emphasizing that some individuals in the team required ‘clarity’ about their ‘roles’, the opening batter said, “Moving forward, what is important for us is role clarity of certain individuals in the squad. I think if we can put that in place and talk to the individual, we can get what we want from different individuals at different points of the game.” He further talked about carrying on from where his predecessor Virat Kohli left off, rather than making drastic changes to the way the team approaches ODI cricket. "I just have to take from where he (Kohli) left. The team pretty