"Not a practice ground, still an international game": India captain Rohit Sharma focused on improving

Colombo [Sri Lanka], August 1 : India captain Rohit Sharma is looking to get "something" out of the three ODIs against Sri Lanka ahead of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
After announcing their retirement from T20Is following India's T20 World Cup triumph in Barbados, the stalwart batting duo Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli will don India colours for the first time against Sri Lanka.
With the Champions Trophy slowly starting to appear on the horizon, India will look to fine-tune their squad for the marquee event under the new reign of head coach Gautam Gambhir.
India's opponent for the series, Sri Lanka have had their fair share of struggle in the 50-over format for quite some time.
The Lions ended in the ninth spot in last year's World Cup and failed to qualify for next year's Champions Trophy which will be played in Pakistan.
Despite Sri Lanka not offering a major threat to the Indian team on the back of their past performances, Rohit is adamant about the Indian team bringing the best in the series.
"You get asked a lot whether this series is a preparation for the World Cup, or is this a preparation for the Champions Trophy. It's not a practice ground - it's still an international game. We will keep in our minds what we want to achieve, but this is by no means preparation or practice or anything like that. We want to come here and play good cricket and get something out of the series," Rohit said in the pre-match press conference.
"Of course, we want to try everything possible, but when you're representing the nation the quality of cricket should remain the way it is, and how we've played over the last few years. That is more important, rather than thinking about it as a preparation and saying let's go out and chill in Colombo. We don't think like that," he added.
Rohit emphasized the need to keep improving and challenging yourself in order to learn new things, instead of going out on the field without any purpose.
"When we play a series and when we play a game, we want to get something out of that. We might tell a bowler: 'We want something different from you.' We might tell a batter: 'This is how we want you to play in the middle overs.' We want to get something out of the series, but not at the cost of going out there and having no intent or purpose. For me, the standard of Indian cricket is more important," Rohit said.
"In terms of what we want to do - it's not just one particular area we're looking to improve, it's the overall game. In sports, you can't just sit happy doing something. You have to keep moving forward, and you have to keep moving up and challenge yourself. There's always something new to learn when you play a series and when you play a game. Whatever we have done, it was good for that particular time, but time keeps moving forward," he added.
India will play the first ODI against Sri Lanka on Friday at R Premadasa Stadium, in Colombo.
India's ODI Squad for Sri Lanka series: Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (WK), Rishabh Pant (WK), Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Riyan Parag, Axar Patel, Khaleel Ahmed, Harshit Rana.