When Rohit Sharma bats and bats like he belongs, it leaves you craving for superlatives to describe his stroke making. Those subtle feet movements, that bending on one knee to clear the stands and an effortless pull to get the crowd running for cover make you admire his batting on display. Tuesday noon at the Adelaide Oval in front of a sparse crowd but a bunch of admirers was one of those days when Rohit Sharma showed what a complete batsman he was. He got runs all round the wicket. Bowl length and you got smacked straight over your head, bowl too straight you got flicked to the square leg boundary. Bowl short and one of his biggest strengths - the pull shot was on display. From the 150 runs that he scored, Rohit had scored 39 of them playing just the pull shot which included four sixes and three boundaries “The Afghanistan bowlers were bowling too short and I think it was not ideal to bowl so many short deliveries on this wicket,” Sharma said in an exclusive chat with BCCI.TV. “The wicket was a little dry and it wasn’t as fast as it was against Australia. There was a little bit of grass in that game but today there wasn’t any. In the bargain I made the most out of it. The pull shot is also one of my strengths and I could pull the ball in front of square as well.” But is playing the pull going to be one of his go-to shots considering the fact that pitches in Australia and New Zealand would have bounce on offer? “It depends on each batsman and the wicket,” Sharma begins to elaborate. “Some batsmen might be happy leaving the ball while some will go for it. The wickets here do not have too much bounce which we saw during the Test matches and ODI series as well. Barring Brisbane and Perth I don’t think any wicket will have that much bounce. I cannot walk into bat with a set plan if the opposition is going to be bowling short at me. The key is very simple; you have to have your own set of gameplans and trust them before walking out to bat.” Sharma also stressed on the fact that one needs to be a good all-round player to be successful in such conditions, sound technique holding prime importance. Being one dimensional won’t help, according to Sharma. “It is not important that you have to be a good backfoot player to be effective in these conditions. You have to be a complete player. Your front foot play is equally important as your backfoot. It is important to score in front of the wicket as well in these conditions. In venues like Sydney and Melbourne there isn’t much bounce and at that time you need to have your plans set to score runs in front of the wicket. “To be a successful batsman you have to be technically sound. If you are an international cricketer it will be difficult to survive if you don’t have a sound technique. You could probably survive for a few years without a good technique but for the long run a sound technique is important.” Sharma’s insights into his game make you feel that here is a player who has seen it all in his eight year old ODI career - downfall, introspection and realization. “I am very confident about my game and it is a matter of taking each game at a time,” he says. “I think what is most important is to have that confidence throughout the tournament. You cannot burden yourself by taking too much pressure on yourself and thinking too much about your game. You just got to go there, think about one game at a time and Pakistan will be that game. We have three days in between now and we will prepare well for it. The good thing about the World Cup is that you get sufficient time between games to analyse and rethink about strategies and gameplans.” Sharma’s punishment on the Afghanistan bowlers meant he got some vital time in the middle which was his main motive in both the warm-up games. “Leading up to the preparations of the big games, it is always good to get as many games and runs as possible but I was just waiting to get into the middle and hit as many balls as I could. It didn’t matter how many runs I scored, my main aim was to spend as much time as I could in the middle since I didn’t play much in the ODI series. I wanted to gauge my fitness and I can say now, everything looks good at the moment. These runs are going to be vital in the build-up to the Pakistan game.” From the team’s perspective Sharma was confident that the team had acquired adequate preparation before the big day on Sunday. “I would like to believe as a team we made the most of it in this game. We were trying a lot of things against Australia as well just to understand what options we had with regards to bowling and batting. I think we got what we wanted in these two warm-up games and we are good to go now. We are looking forward to the game against Pakistan.”