‘It’s ICC’s headache’: Rohit Sharma hits back at favouritism charges against India

There has been a lot of criticism about India having an advantage because of the World Cup’s scheduling. Former England cricketers Michael Vaughan and David Lloyd even went to the extent of accusing the ICC of favouritism by making sure India was the only team to know their semi-final venue (Guyana) and date (June 27) even before the tournament started.

India was also the only top team to play all day-games throughout the tournament. This was done to make sure viewers in India could watch the entire action at a favourable time. All of India’s matches, including the knockout games, have a scheduled 8pm (IST) start.

In response, captain Rohit Sharma feels that India will have no advantage.

“I don’t think it’s an advantage. I mean a lot of these players have played in different types of venues. I’m sure a lot of these English cricketers have played in this venue. So, I don’t see this as an advantage. At the end of the day, you’ve got to play good cricket to win a cricket game. That’s how I look at it,” said Rohit.

“Look, the overhead conditions is in nobody’s control. We don’t know what’s going to happen. The only thing I’m worried is if the game goes on until pretty late, we have a charter flight. We might miss that flight, but that’s OK. It’s the ICC and the Cricket West Indies headache to get us to the next venue, but we’ll focus on how we can play this game well and get the results in our favour. That’s what we will be focusing on but yeah, at the end of the day two good cricket teams are going to play so it’s going to be a great game,” he added.