For both Rohit Sharma and Jos Buttler, winning more titles, at all cost, is part of the job description
ADELAIDE: The lead-up to the India-England semifinal threw up an interesting subplot on Wednesday: the tale of two captains under extreme pressure to cement their new positions and forge some sort of legacy.
Both Rohit Sharma and Jos Buttler came in with mandates to transform their respective white-ball sides, although under different circumstances. Both have stepped in to the shoes of impactful predecessors, with Buttler replacing Eoin Morgan and Virat Kohli making way for Rohit.
Buttler took over a powerful white-ball side transformed by Morgan, with the mandate to continue England's white-ball revolution. Rohit came in with the express directive to help India win some ICC trophies and World Cups. For both these captains, it is now crunch time at the Adelaide Oval. India and England last played a knockout match against each other in the 2013 Champions Trophy final in Birmingham, which India won by five runs.
Since then, India have not won an ICC title but played 7 knockout games across the 50over and 20-over World Cups and the Champions Trophy. They have lost 5 of those, twice in the final and thrice in the semis. England have won only once since the 2019 50-over World Cup, and Moeen Ali recently said the team needed to start winning more white-ball titles.
Victory now will make the immediate future easier for both captains. Defeat and there will be more hand-wringing and increased spotlight on their leadership styles. T20 is a quick game in which results often hinge on lightning-fast decisions, but the post-mortem of defeat can be an endless affair. Captaincy isn't called the 'hot seat' for no reason.
Rohit, on his part, suggested it was unfair to judge players based just on performances in knockout games. "Knockout games are important, we do understand that. But for us, not just for me but all the players, what they've done in their entire career is not defined by just one knockout game.
"The entire year you work so hard to get where you want to and to do well in whichever format you play. So that one particular game is not going to decide that. It's important to understand the importance of knockout but it's also important to under stand what sort of effort you put in the entire year to come to that stage," he said.
"As a team, we can take a lot of credit and pride in where we have come. But when you play this kind of tournament, you have to break it into parts. We've done one part well. There are two more parts to go."
Buttler, meanwhile, is among five survivors in this England squad who were part of the team which lost to Bangladesh at the Adelaide Oval in the 2015 World Cup, a defeat which spurred big changes in their white-ball setup. "A few of us were actually talking about it in the dressing room," Buttler said.
"Anytime you go back to certain grounds there are memories that are not good. It's been clear to see the change in the mindset in English cricket towards the white-ball game since that game. It was a real line in the sand. Now to be in a semifinal and going into tournaments with a level of expectation that we should perform well is a great place to be as a team."
Which brought things back to the importance of winning these knockout games. "We certainly don't want to be a team that just says we played a great style of cricket," Butler said. "You want to have tangible things that you have achieved. The big prize is standing there with the trophy. If we play to the best of our abilities with the way we want to play our cricket, that's how we're going to get to the point of lifting more trophies."
Rohit was more philosophical, and perhaps more forgiving. "Doing well in knockout games gives you that immense confidence as a player. But we do not forget what the players have done in the past," he said. "All the performances they've put in for the team over the years, that one (knockout) game cannot be dictating that. I really don't believe that one bad game in the knockouts can truly define what kind of a player you are."
It certainly cannot, but empathy will not be part of the public discourse for the losing team come Thursday.
