Backing youngsters to play their natural game is extremely crucial, opines Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma has been pretty vocal about backing the young players to express themselves and play their natural game. He believes that if the situation demands big-hitting then the big hits should be practiced in the nets too, something that was considered a crime during his childhood.
"There is nothing harm in playing big shots, trying to play a flamboyant cover drive. When we were growing up and used to play shots in the air, we were taken out of the nets, which was not right because eventually, you want the results," Rohit said during an interaction with his young trainees in his own academy.
Rohit who himself has scored three double-hundreds in ODIs understands the importance of big hitting and how crucial it has become in today's day and age to have genuine big-hitters in your playing eleven. But these genuine big hitters need to be groomed from a very young age and thus Rohit believes that it is very important to analyze a youngster's mind and what he thinks about the game while batting
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Rohit is a very firm believer of giving adequate freedom to the youngsters to showcase their talent because having the self-confidence to play big shots is so important and to make that self-confidence grow proper encouragement is required.
"I would encourage that to play shots if they want to but at the same time they need to understand that they need to produce results, that's the game. You score 100 off 50 balls or 200 balls, it doesn't matter, it still is a hundred," he opined.
The dynamics of modern day cricket have changed a lot from what it were before and thus Rohit feels that even the perspective of a coach should change. Young budding cricketers must not just be taught how to play grounded strokes but if they have the capability and the natural instinct to hit the big shots then they should be backed by the coach
"I mean if the guy is confident in his skills, I would back that skill. There should not be any restriction on how these young players want to bat. They should be allowed to bat freely, that's how they will produce results," Rohit concluded.