Determined to keep great run going: Rohit

Though India are riding a wave of success, their ODI vice-captain Rohit Sharma said the hosts weren’t taking any side lightly as each team offered its own challenge. The right-hander, who himself has been in the pink of form, discusses a range of issues ahead of the ODI series against New Zealand.

Excerpts.   
On new series: Every new series has its own challenge. That is the biggest part and the greatest strength of this (Indian) team. We treat each series as it comes. Every opposition which comes here has its own strengths and weaknesses. Our challenge is to adapt to the opposition quickly. We played against Australia and they had different team dynamics. New Zealand, on the other hand, has a different team dynamics. The strategies will revolve according to that. We would like to continue from where we left against Australia.

On approach as vice-captain: It has not changed much. It is very similar to what it used to be before. Every now and then, it is an open discussion with the team that the captain and coach come and talk to about. It is not just about one individual. For me as vice-captain, there is a responsibility. There is something I always look forward to going out there on the field and contributing. Not just with the bat but also with the important thoughts to the captain. I don’t see much has changed and I don’t want to change too much also.

On his personal form: You feel good when you score runs, the last few years especially it’s been really good. I spoke about when I started opening the innings that I wanted to be consistent at the top because it’s very important from the team’s perspective, looking from the team’s perspective that the top few players stay consistent in their performance to get the team to a good position all the time. So in that space I am quite happy right now, but the hunger (for runs) will never go, you will take every series as an opportunity and go out and perform the same.

On trend of small targets (especially against Australia): That completely depends on the wickets we play; if the wicket is helping the bowlers as a batting unit, you got to be very smart as to what you do as a batting group. The high scoring games will happen if the wickets are flat, but the last few series we played, they were challenging wickets; slow wickets turning and some of the wickets we played were a little damp, where the ball was stopping and coming, two-paced wickets.