India captain Rohit Sharma urged reporters present in the pre-match press conference of the 1st ODI vs England to not focus on the negatives when he was asked what were the alternative plans in allrounder Hardik Pandya got injured like he did in the 2023 World Cup.
“Why are we thinking about the negatives? That he will get injured, this will happen, that will happen. In the minds of the selectors, there are things in our minds. I can’t say that here. But there are things. We played the World Cup when he got injured,” Rohit said.
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“He got injured in the 3rd or 4th match. After that, we played the whole tournament. Although we lost the final, but we played good cricket till the final. So now, I won’t think about what will happen if he gets injured. What will happen if this happens, what will happen if that happens. I think, you are playing good cricket now. So we will hope that you keep playing good cricket and nothing happens,” he added.
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In the 2023 World Cup, Pandya had sustained an ankle injury when he tried to stop a ball off his own bowling in the league game against Bangladesh. This led to Pandya missing the T20I series at home against Australia and the three T20Is and three ODIs in South Africa that year.
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He ultimately returned to competitive cricket in the Indian Premier League last year before helping India clinch the T20 World Cup in the same year. However, the allrounder is yet to play an ODI match since the 2023 World Cup game against Bangladesh, where he had sustained the injury.
As Rohit Sharma’s India take on Jos Buttler’s England in the first ODI, follow our ground reports from The Indian Express’ Pratyush Raj, who is in Nagpur
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