'No one is an automatic selection for ODI World Cup, not even me'

With less than two months to go for the ODI World Cup at home, all eyes are on skipper Rohit Sharma and the team management to get preparation and squad composition right.

- Sanjjeev K Samyal

The focus is on the middleorder, especially No.4. With Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul yet to return after surgery, India are keen Suryakumar Yadav translates his T20 skills in ODIS.

At an event to promote the Laliga EA Sports season, Sharma interacted with the media and elaborated on the thinking that is going into putting the India team together. Excerpts:

With less than two months to go, how's the World Cup preparation?

We've to be prepared, but at the same time there are a lot of other factors like who are the right guys?  How can they fit in the squad? What are the challenges we're going to face in the World Cup? Where's the hole in our team, batting or bowling? In bowling, what are the problems, in spin or fast bowling? And in batting, where are the issues, opening, middle-order or finishing? We've to make all our departments strong and for that we need to give chances to our players. Not everything, or every time will you get things right. You're human at the end of the day. The guys who're working with me are also human. So, we'll make errors... But it's important for people to have opportunities. Before they get into the World Cup, they should have had 20-30 games. I'm not saying all 30 of them... There will be guys whom you think are talented, can do the job.

They can straightaway come in... It's not like we've to compulsorily give 15 games to a player, there can be exceptions. I remember, 2007 (T20 World Cup win) was my first World Cup. I didn't go with any expectation, nor that people outside were expecting anything from us, or me. New players came in and we won. At the same time, we had a mixture of solid, experienced players in Yuvi, Harbhajan, MS, Agarkar, Sehwag. In a squad, you should have everything. So, when he goes out to bat, there'll be no pressure on him, no baggage of scoring 10,000 runs or 100 centuries or fastest fifty or hundred. You need some guys like that.