Indian batsman Suresh Raina isn’t satisfied just by making a comeback to the Indian dressing room in the T20I series. He is looking forward to breaking into the ODI team as well. On his comeback in the T20I team, Raina said this is a chance for him to regain his position in the ODI squad ahead of the all-important 50-over World Cup in 2019.

Talking about the T20I series, Suresh said, “It is important to win a trophy first and important to go out there as a team mindset. If you see the top order, they are all batting well. When you come to the middle order, MS (Dhoni) is there and Manish (Pandey) is also doing a good job. So we will see where I can fit in. Every Indian game is very important for me right now.”

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Raina was the part of the playing XI in the first two T20Is against South Africa and scored 46 runs. India play their third and final T20I on Saturday and with the series leveled at 1-1, will hope to win the game and the series as well. Speaking on the same lines, Raina said, “I always play for the team and if we are winning trophies, individual performances will look after themselves. Whatever opportunity I get I look to play my natural game. I enjoy the team support and it helps improve my game.”

The southpaw also revealed the plan ahead of the third game. He said, “It is important (to attack). Virat (Kohli) showed that faith in me. It is very important to play well in the first six overs. Some times you get runs sometimes you don’t, but I think when there is depth in the middle order you need to play really well in the first six overs. You need to take chances in the first six overs when you are looking to chase or get big runs and that’s what we have done as a batting unit.”

Talking about the hosts, Raina said that they have been very attacking and that was seen the two run-chases in this series. He credited their bowlers for mixing it up in the second game which India lost. He said, “In the first game, they had two fielders back and no third man. So Rohit (Sharma) took 20 in the first over. But they bowled well in the last game. They were using a lot of variation like the slower ball. We have done really well as a bowling unity. They needed to do something different else when Kuldeep (Yadav) and Yuzvendra Chahal were not allowing them to score.”

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He further added, “They needed to come up with a plan B and they have done that. But it is not that we haven’t done well. Bhuvneshwar Kumar took 5 wickets, Hardik (Pandya) and Chahal have bowled well.”

Suresh Raina concluded by talking about the World Cup next year and said that it is still a long road to the World Cup in England. He said, “I think it is a long road to the World Cup from here on. First, we have the tri-series in Sri Lanka, then we have the IPL, so we need to keep fresh, keep winning and doing the right processes. Closer to the World Cup we will be able to tell where we are going. It is important to stay in present and look to win each and every game.”