T20 World Cup 2024: In-form India keen to do something special in Super 8: Rohit Sharma

Barbados: Having won all their games except the washed-out encounter against Canada to march into the Super Eight of the T20 World Cup, India are now fired up to do something special in the tournament's second stage, says skipper Rohit Sharma.

“There’s real keenness in the group to go and do something special. That’s a good way to start the second stage of the tournament,” Rohit told BCCI during a training session ahead of the Super Eight phase.

The Men in Blue topped Group A with an emphatic win over Ireland, followed by victories against Pakistan and USA in two gritty contests, before the weather played spoilsport opposite Canada.

India are now clubbed with Australia, Afghanistan and Bangladesh in group one of the Super Eight.

Even as the side went about honing their skills in the practice sessions, Rohit spoke of the challenges of playing three games in five days, but believed this wouldn’t hamper their chances, according to icccricket.com.

“It clearly shows that everybody wants to make a difference and we take our skill sessions quite seriously. There’s something to achieve in every skill session that you do. After we play our first game, we’ll play our next two games in three-four days," he said.

“It’s going to be a little hectic but we’re used to all this. We travel a lot, we play a lot. So that’s never going to be an excuse.

“We’ll focus a lot more on our skills and what we need to do as a team rather than what others are doing. Every (practice) session then becomes important, to make the best use of it.”

Rohit said his team was not at all concerned over having had to play all their first round matches in the USA, whereas teams like Afghanistan, and Australia had the luxury of turning out in the West Indies.

“We’ve seen a lot of games here, we’ve played a lot of games here. Everyone understands what one needs to do, to get the result in our favour," he said.

“Everyone’s looking forward and quite excited at the same time.”

India take on Afghanistan in their first Super Eight game on June 20 here.