T20 World Cup 2024: Watch - Ajit Agarkar in splits as Rohit Sharma does a hilarious gesture when asked about no off-spinner in squad
Published - 02 May 2024, 08:10 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 10:36 PM
Rohit Sharma never shies away from having some fun in the press conferences and the India skipper could not stop himself from doing the same once again on Thursday (May 2).
Even the press conference for the T20 World Cup squad selection could not stop the India skipper from sharing a light moment with the journalists. The 15-member India squad for the highly-anticipated ICC T20 World Cup 2024 was announced on Tuesday (April 30). Two days after the squad announcement, Rohit Sharma and chief selector Ajit Agarkar interacted with the media.
During the interaction, they were asked about the team combination, the decision to include certain players as well as the decision to leave out some notable names such as KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, and Rinku Singh. Coming to the incident involving Rohit Sharma, the India skipper had a hilarious reaction to a journalist asking about the absence of a frontline off-spinner in the team.
The selectors have picked two wrist spinners in the 15-member squad - Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav. Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel are the other spin options in the squad. As soon as the journalist asked the question, Rohit Sharma raised his hand to signal that he himself was an off-spinner. Rohit Sharma's reaction left the journalists as well as Agarkar in splits.
Watch:
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Rohit Sharma on India's spin attack:
During the press conference, Rohit Sharma stated that he wanted four spinners in the squad although he did not reveal the reason behind his decision. The Indian team management and the selectors faced criticism for picking only three frontline pacers in the team but Rohit made it clear that he preferred to have more spinners.
"I don't want to go too much into detail on it, I'm sure opposition captains are listening to this," Rohit said.
"I definitely wanted four spinners. We've played a lot of cricket there [Caribbean]. We know what the conditions are like. With morning starts at 10-10.30am, there's a little bit of technical aspect involved in this."
"The reason for four spinners is this, which I'm not going to say in public. But I wanted four spinners for sure. With two of the spinners being allrounders who can bat, Axar and Jadeja, and two attacking spinners - Kuldeep and Chahal - it gives you the balance in the spin department. Based on the team composition of the opposition we can decide what we want to play with," he added.