Pandya, who is also India’s vice-captain and alternate captain for the first ODI of the three-game series against Australia, has no doubts about the support staff and has complete faith in the coaches of strength and conditioning when it comes to workload calls.
“We have to trust our strength and conditioning coaches. I’m a guy who trusts his team. These workload calls, who should play when, who shouldn’t play, it’s completely on the guys who are professionals and it’s calling them,” Pandya said.
“All these guys are convinced that if they miss certain games, they miss. That’s good. That’s the confidence we have. If someone misses because of workload management, this management has shown trust and confidence in the players. I think that’s why the players who left came back with a lot of security,” he added.
#TeamIndia trained at Wankhede Stadium ahead of the 1st ODI against Australia. Snapshots of the same 📸📸… https://t.co/nmMkumheG3
— BCCI (@BCCI) 1678979144000
The 29-year-old all-rounder said he was ready to share the workload with fellow bowlers. “Whatever the situation calls for, I’ll do it,” he said when asked if he was ready to play a full 10-over quota.
India have generally done well in the bilateral series – home and away – but have been consistently failing in ICC tournaments for almost a decade now, with the most recent disappointment being the semi-final loss to India. England at the T20 World Cup in Australia last year.
Pandya said the team didn’t try anything new to change the trend and the focus was on learning from two-way encounters.
“I don’t think we’ve tried anything new. We’ll try to be a bit brave, which I think we’ve done pretty well over the last two sets,” the all-rounder told the media here at the stadium. Wankhede.
“All these bilaterals are also difficult, they can get as close to the wire as possible. It’s the only way for us to learn and start playing under the pressure of knockouts (in ICC tournaments). (But) we let’s not. have to look at this now, the past is over and we hope for the best things to come,” Pandya added.
Pandya felt that ODI matches are more stable and give teams more time to execute their plans. “ODIs are just an extension of the T20 game in which you have to make a lot of changes. You have to be there because every time every ball changes the game. In ODIs you have more plans set, once you start something, the same plan could be going for six overs. That’s just (roughly) how we can control that period,” he said.
Pandya also said Indian players are used to competing in the Indian Premier League, especially when the tournament is held around a big bilateral series. The third ODI against Australia will be played on March 22 in Chennai, while the IPL 2023 will start on March 31.
“We are all professionals and this is not the first time we have played in the IPL. It will be my ninth or tenth and almost everyone has been there for far too long. Playing for the country is an honor and a blessing. different pride so that is not even questioned,” he said.
“To be very honest, I had to think about this for the first time because I don’t think any individual had this idea to motivate more because the IPL is there. The IPL is the IPL , how we take it series by series, even the IPL will be the same,” explained the all-rounder.
Pandya added that he has no ambitions to represent India in the ICC World Test Championship final which will be played against Australia at The Oval in June this year.
“No. I’m a very strong ethical person. I didn’t do 10 percent to get there. I’m not even one percent. So to come out there and take somebody’s place is not will not go well ethically if i want to play test cricket i will go through the grind and earn my place therefore for this reason i will not be available for the WTC Final or future rounds of testing until I don’t feel like I’ve earned my spot,” he said.
(With PTI inputs)
