What occurs once you put 10 World Cup captains in a single room?
Rohit Sharma pursed his lips and furrowed his forehead. Sitting cross-legged on a white couch within the banquet corridor of the Gujarat Cricket Association Clubhouse, he threw up his arms to take problem with the road of questioning. “That’s not my job, sir,” he mentioned. “Declaring all this is not my job.”
He had been requested, 4 years too late, on his view on the results of the 2019 World Cup final: a tied Super Over, which noticed England elevate the trophy by advantage of hitting extra boundaries than New Zealand. The reporter in query requested if the groups ought to have been declared joint winners; Rohit, maybe unsurprisingly, was not vastly fussed.
On the opposite aspect of the stage, Babar Azam leaned ahead and stifled a giggle. Jos Buttler might recognise from the response from the assembled media within the room that one thing humorous had occurred, however wanted a translation; Babar, sitting subsequent to him, obliged, and the pair of them shared amusing.
Two seats down from Rohit, Temba Bavuma was sitting quietly as different captains answered questions. With his arms crossed throughout his lap and his head bowed, it briefly appeared as if he had fallen asleep. “I blame the camera angle, I wasn’t sleeping,” he later clarified on Twitter.
Welcome to Captains’ Day, a panel occasion hosted by Ravi Shastri and Eoin Morgan and staged by the ICC on the eve of the 2023 World Cup. Six of the ten captains had flown into Ahmedabad instantly after a warm-up recreation on Tuesday night time, and eight of them will head straight to a different venue for his or her opening match.
If this was an elaborate excuse for a photoshoot, it was additionally a uncommon probability to see ten worldwide captains in the identical room, interacting with each other and sizing one another up forward of a match that would outline every of their legacies, each as gamers and leaders. There had been light-hearted moments, but in addition moments of recognition of what’s at stake.
“There’s always a level of expectation and pressure that comes naturally with representing your country in a World Cup,” Buttler mentioned. “That’s why the room is so full: people have an interest, especially here in India where cricket is revered more than anywhere else in the world. But you should enjoy that, and accept that: I’m a fan of other sports, and know what it’s like to be a fan watching.”
In Babar’s case, captaining Pakistan in India is a job that transcends sport and in direction of diplomacy: in any case, he was talking at a stadium named after Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister. His squad had been welcomed warmly on arrival in Hyderabad: “The way people are responding towards our team, everyone enjoyed it,” he mentioned.
“Since we came to Hyderabad, the hospitality we got, the way people welcomed us from the airport to the hotel, the crowd in the ground and in the last match, we liked it a lot.” Then, one other nod to diplomacy, and Pakistan supporters’ points securing Indian visas: “It would have been better if we had fans from our side. We will try to get such support in every match, in every stadium.”
For Rohit, there’s the inevitable stress that comes with main India on house soil – not least with host nations successful three 50-over World Cups in a row, and India’s trophy drought in males’s ICC occasions now stretching greater than a decade. “I know what’s at stake,” he mentioned.
“For us, it’s just about taking everything out now and just focusing on what we want to do as a team. Not worry about the expectations, because that’s always going to be there; not worry about who we’re playing; and not worry about what is happening elsewhere. It’s time now for us to be secluded a little bit, and then focus on what we want to do as a team.”
He anticipates a wave of curiosity within the match over the approaching days. “Any big event that is supposed to happen in the county, people get really excited,” Rohit mentioned. “And cricket being the biggest sport in India, I’m not surprised by the excitement that people have… it is spread across the entire country. Anywhere you go, the talk is about the World Cup.”
All that’s left is for Buttler to stroll out for the toss on Thursday afternoon – although he might be joined by Tom Latham, with Kane Williamson watching from the dressing room. The speaking is finished, and for the subsequent 45 days, the cricket will take over.