Published By: Saksham Mishra

Rohit Sharma amps up Powerplay scoring

Rohit Sharma has been on fire in the Powerplay and has gone on the offensive.

A change in approach

Rohit Sharma has always been known to take his sweet time before he gets going. Even for his franchise Mumbai Indians, it's Quinton de Kock who is the aggressor and Rohit Sharma assesses the conditions and then starts going.

However, after India suffered defeats in the first two matches of the T20 World Cup 2021 against Pakistan and New Zealand, effectively knocking them out of the competition, the newly appointed captain decided to change his style.

The batter has gone on the offensive since then. In fact, he has scored 184 runs in the Powerplay in his last 6 T20 International innings.

Off 109 deliveries, he has struck at almost 170 with the help of 22 boundaries and 10 sixes and has been dismissed just once.

Happy captain

This is what Rohit had to say after India registered a victory in his first series as full-time T20I captain.

"It's important to start well. That's always been my mindset. Once you've seen the pitch you know what you've got to do. It was nicely coming onto the bat with the dew coming early. We had something planned as a batting group. Wouldn't say it worked out well. Room for improvement in the middle order. The batting front - KL missed out today but his form is critical. Middle order didn't get much opportunity except today. The spinners did the job for us in the entire series. The way Ashwin bowled, Axar. And how Chahal came back. Good to see Venkatesh Iyer bowling those overs with the skills he has. Important for us going forward."

"I would prefer batting deep going forward. Teams around the world bat deep till No.8, No.9. Harshal, when he plays for Haryana, he opens the batting for them. And then Deepak, we've seen what he did in SL. Chahal was looking forward to bat as well. I've grown up playing on a concrete pitch back in the day. Once I started opening a lot of things changed. Won't say it (playing the pull) comes naturally. I've practised a lot playing those shots. Some days it comes off very well but I've got out also playing that shot. That's why I say when you've got a certain strength, you've got to back it," Rohit signed off.