Indian men's cricket team will start their Asian Games 2023 campaign against Nepal in the quarterfinal match. Opening batter Ruturaj Gaikwad, who is leading the country in the quadrennial event in Hangzhou, China, expressed that the team is motivated to win the coveted gold medal.
Harmanpreet Kaur-led Indian women's cricket team bagged historic gold defeating Sri Lanka in the final last week. The men's team will look to replicate that in the coming days. Participating in the first-ever Asian Games, Gaikwad shared the excitement of living in the athletes' village and interacting with fellow players.
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"Coming to the Asian Games, everyone is eager to win the gold for the country and stand up on the podium. In cricket, we have the World Cup, the IPL and domestic tournaments. We are used to that kind of environment and situations. But coming here and going to the village, we really got to know about the athletes — what kinds of struggle they go through," PTI quoted Gaikwad as saying ahead of India's first game.
"Hardly (in) 2-3 years or four years (that) they get an opportunity to play for the country and represent it. We took a lot of pride from yesterday's visit (to the Games' village) and obviously got to know how special it is — obviously we do know but it just reflected a little bit more to represent the country," he added.
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Gaikwad, who has played under legendary captain MS Dhoni's captaincy in Chennai Super Kings, said he will lead the side as per his skills and will try to incorporate the former Indian captain's teachings.
"I got to learn a lot of things from him (Dhoni) but every person has a different style. His style is different, his personality is different and my personality is a bit different. I will try to be myself and not really look at what he usually does. Obviously, yes you have to pick out some things which he does really well, how he handles situations and how he handles particular players during a match. Obviously, these are (a) few things I really took from him, but I would like to lead the way I want to. I just want the players to express themselves and give how much ever freedom that I can," Gaikwad added.