Chennai: Looking refreshed after a month’s break, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma asserted that they were not taking Bangladesh lightly in the two-match Test series starting Thursday here and are certainly not considering the Tigers as a warm-up exercise for the bigger battles ahead.
Following the series against Bangladesh, India host New Zealand for three Tests starting October 16 in Bengaluru and then embark on a gruelling five-match Test tour to Australia with the opening game kicking off in Perth on November 22. All of them are part of the World Test Championship calendar which the two-time runners-up India lead with 68.52 percentage points with Bangladesh in surprise fourth at 45.83 following a 2-0 away win over Pakistan. All of this was not lost on Rohit.
“Every Test match is a big one,” stressed Rohit at a press conference in Chepauk on Tuesday. “Look, at the end of the day, you are playing for your country. So, there is no dress rehearsal kind of stuff happening here. Every game that we play is important and every game becomes important because of what is at stake. World Test Championship, still the table is quite wide open and you want to win every game.
“So, it doesn't matter where we play in two months' time. We want to win here. We want to win this Test match. So, I think we have to focus on how we can win this series and the Test match… Look, all the teams want to defeat India. It is fun to defeat India. Let them have fun. But our job is to win the match and figure out how we can win.”
Apart from a vast majority of the members enjoying a deserved one-month break, the series marks the return of Virat Kohli to Tests after a little over eight months — the former skipper missed the entire England series for personal reasons. Several others, who were busy with white-ball engagements, too will be playing in white flannels for the first time since the England series that concluded in March.
Rohit admitted it’ll be tough for them to transition smoothly into red-ball following plenty of limited-overs cricket but felt experience will carry them through. “It's always tough, let's be honest. It's not easy when you don’t play (Tests) for a period of six to eight months. But see, good thing is a lot of guys in the squad are quite experienced with that. It is not the first time this has happened where we've not played cricket for four or five months and we've just come back.
“It has happened previously as well, which is why it was important for us to have this little camp over here in Chennai. We assembled here on (September) 12th and we've had a good time spending hours on the field, getting everything together. So yeah, it is tough, but see, now people are so experienced, they manage themselves pretty well. And guys who have not played a lot of Test cricket, obviously went on to play the Duleep Trophy, which was good. So in terms of preparation, in terms of readiness, I feel we are quite ready for this game and what lies ahead of us.”