India-Australia CT semifinals: ‘We understand the opposition, need to approach the game like last three games’ said Rohit

Rohit Sharma considers playing four spinners against Australia in the semifinals after Varun Chakaravarthy's impressive performance.

Rohit Sharma hinted that the team could play four spinners against Australia in the semifinals, as it did against New Zealand on Sunday (March 2, 2025). Varun Chakaravarthy replaced Harshit Rana for the game and made a case for including him in the knockout fixture as well by scalping his maiden five-wicket haul (in ODIs).

“We really need to think, even if we want to play four spinners, how we can squeeze four spinners,” said Rohit after his side’s 44-run win over the Kiwis. “Whatever works for us in terms of the bowling options, we will try and do that. But it is tempting.”

“We just want to go back and think about what the Australian batting lineup will look like and how we can try and see what kind of bowling options will work against them,” the skipper explained.

He also spoke highly about how Varun has improved over the last few years and revealed that even some of the Indian batters struggle to pick the mystery spinner.

“I think he’s become more accurate now from the last time he played for India. There was a little bit of inexperience in him, because he hadn’t played a lot of cricket. But right now, in the last two or three years, he’s played a lot of cricket, whether it’s domestic cricket, IPL, and now for India in T20s. He understands his bowling well.”

“There is definitely something about his bowling which he’s using to his advantage. Some of our batters also couldn’t figure that out, which is always nice.”

Rohit praised the spinner’s pace variation saying, “Watching from behind when I was standing in the slips, the variation of his has become a lot more. And when you have a little bit of mystery, you don’t want to be a one-dimensional bowler and bowl at the same speed.”