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India skipper Rohit Sharma will be looking to forget T20 World Cup 2022 failure when he will lead the squad for the first time since India's exit from the ICC tournament, in the first of three-match ODI series against Bangladesh, on November 4 (Sunday).
While both the teams will be looking forward to kick-starting the bilateral contest on a high, Bangladesh will surely have an edge over India in one aspect of the match which is crowd support.
Bangladesh is one of the cricket-crazy nations which always garners enormous cricket fans to the stadium. Although the Bangladesh cricket team has failed to live up to their expectations in the recent past, there is hardly any drop in their fan following.
As the Indian skipper is well aware of this situation, he came up with an interesting response when asked about the same during a pre-match press conference.
While speaking on the eve of India vs Bangladesh 1st ODI, Rohit Sharma said that crowd support in Bangladesh can be intimidating, but players who are touring the neighboring country for the first time have enough experience to deal with it.
When the journalist said, "India get support everywhere," the India skipper just said "Not here in Bangladesh."
“The crowd here can be intimidating. They are passionate fans of cricket, and they get right behind his time. It is exciting for their team. But for us, yes, lot of guys are coming to Bangladesh for the first time; but that doesn’t change a thing. You are used to play in such a big crowd when you tour place like Australia and England,” Rohit said.
The skipper further showed confidence in his players and stated that Indian players are used to experiencing such a crowd. “They (Fans) want to get behind the team, it’s the same thing here as well. It’s not going to affect our boys, they are used to being under pressure and being challenged,” Rohit added.
The first two ODIs of the series will take place on December 4 and 7, respectively In Dhaka before teams move to Chattorgam for the third and final ODI of the series on December 10. The two-match Test series will begin on December 14.