'Last 4-5 games won't tell me what Wankhede is': Rohit Sharma shuts noise surrounding toss at IND vs NZ World Cup semis

Toss will play a very important role, probably the most crucial one, in the World Cup 2023 semifinal match between India and New Zealand on Wednesday. And the statistics of the Wankhede Stadium, the venue for the epic clash, couldn't draw a more clearer picture on what teams ought to do when they win the toss. Not to forget, India have played a match there in this tournament and emerged victoriously after Sri Lanka erred at the toss while New Zealand will be playing their first game in this World Cup in Mumbai on Wednesday. However, India captain Rohit Sharma shut the noise surrounding the toss at Wankhede.

Four matches have been played in Mumbai during this World Cup and the team batting first won three of them. It could have surely been 4 out of 4 hadn't it been for that Glenn Maxwell's stunner against Afghanistan, where he pulled Australia out of sheer misery and from the jaws of a World Cup humiliation with a historic 201* a week back.

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Moreover, the average first innings score at the Wankhede is 357. Afghanistan were the only side to not get a total above 350. India themselves smashed 357 for eight against Sri Lanka where Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer hit their respective fifty-plus scores. Meanwhile, the average second innings score at the same venue is only 187 with Australia being the only side amass over 250 runs. Sri Lanka were folded for just 55 by India while England were bundled for 170 by South Africa.

Despite the stats depicting a clear picture, Rohit, speaking to the press ahead of the big game against New Zealand, reckoned that results in past matches at the Wankhede will not have an impact on him.

“Honestly I have played a lot of cricket here. The last 4-5 games won't tell me a lot about what Wankhede is. And I don't want to talk about much what Wankhede is. But I certainly believe that toss is not the factor,” he said.

The India captain also opened up on the team's heartbreaking loss to New Zealand in the 2019 semifinal in Manchester and said reckoned that with players and the set-up being different over the course of the four years for both the teams, past records stand insignificant to him.

“When you don't come through there are a lot of learnings on what went wrong and what as a team we could have done better. But it is a completely different set up now and different set of players from what is was in 2019. We have taken our learnings from previous World Cup. Things are moving pretty well at this point in time for us and would want to continue in the same fashion. What happened in the past is not going to determine what will happen tomorrow,” he added.