Indian Captain Rohit Sharma heaped praise on bowlers for India’s seven-wicket win over Bangladesh in their Super Four Asia Cup clash on Friday in Dubai.
While there were a few questions raised by fans and cricket enthusiasts regarding Rohit’s decision to bat second, the skipper said that he knew it was always going to be easy to bat under the lights and hence he made that choice.
Ravindra Jadeja, who was playing an ODI after 14 months, was named the Player of the Match for his 4 for 29. Along with Jadeja’s four scalps, Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s three wickets each helped India restrict the Bangla Tigers at 173.
“It was a clinical performance right from the started and restricted them to 170 odd. We always knew it was better batting under lights. It is important on this pitch to rotate bowlers as batsmen get used to the bowlers quickly.
Conditions were challenging but our bowling unit responded very well for us. Chahal and Kuldeep have been bowling really well. Jadeja played an ODI after very long time. To come out and play an ODI like this is exceptional. Kuldeep and Chahal will have an odd off game,” Rohit said during the post-match presentation.
The stand-in skipper, in the absence of Virat Kohli, added that they were lucky as everything went according to their plan. “All the bowlers bowled according to the plan. When everything goes to plan, it looks easy. We always knew that it will never be easy for the new batsmen so we wanted one of the top order batsmen to be till the end. We will go back and recover and come back fresh against Pakistan and try to replicate this performance.”
Meanwhile, Jadeja said that he would like to get back to his all-round show in the shorter format as well and will look forward to playing his role with the bat too against Pakistan if he will get a chance.
“Finally, I am playing after 15 months in an ODI. I always wanted to make a mark when I got the chance. Finally, I got a chance today and I am very happy. Kuldeep and Chahal were also bowling well and luckily I was getting wickets at the other end. That's how bowling works. I try to prove and perform in every format. I will try to play my role with bat too if the opportunity comes against Pakistan,” the Player of the Match said.
Meanwhile, Bangladeshi captain Mortaza said that their inability to build partnerships against India cost them the match.
“If you look at the batting, we lost wickets from the start. Against Sri Lanka, we lost wickets but had a middle-order partnership that did well. You have to back yourself, it was a decent wicket to bat on. We couldn't make any partnership today. We could have made 250-260.
It might have been a better track for batting later, but 260-270 would have made for a good match. You can't ask bowlers to defend 170 in a 50-over match, so I think our batsmen have to take more responsibility to build the innings. One match can change everything; we are still in the tournament, and we need to do well against Afghanistan next time. They're a tough side to beat because of their bowling, but we can definitely beat them if we get 260-270 on the board. Our bowling has been up to the mark but our batting certainly has scope for improvement,” Mortaza said.
