The Skipper Rohit Sharma was impressive with his 87 runs knock during the match against England in the World Cup 2023.
Rohit Sharma on victory against England
India is scheduled to play in the 29th World Cup match against England on October 29 at Lucknow Stadium. The skipper Rohit Sharma was named as the player of the Match as he quickly withdrew the side from quick dismissal of three wickets and smashed an impressive score during the match.
Winning the toss, England chose to bowl where Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill opened the innings while Willey opened the bowling attack. With the dismissal of Shubman Gill for 9 runs by Woakes, Virat Kohli was sent out on a duck by Willey.
The dismissal of Shreyas Iyer for 4 runs was a big setback for the side as India was down to the last seven wickets scoring only 40 runs. Rohit Sharma was impressive during the match as he scored 87 runs on 101 deliveries which included 10 fours and 3 sixes and was dismissed by Adil Rashid.
KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav helped the side with their 39 and 49 scores but were dismissed by Willey. Other batters were sent out with low figures as they were dismissed by England bowlers.
Willey dismissed three wickets while Chris Woakes and Adil Rashid dismissed two wickets each. By the end of 50 overs, Indian scored 229 runs losing 9 wickets with Siraj yet to bat.
With a target of 230, Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan opened the innings while India’s ace Pacer Jasprit Bumrah opened the bowling attack. Dawid Malan scored 16 runs while Joe Root was sent out with a golden duck by Bumrah.
With the dismissal of Stokes for a duck, England was down to three wickets scoring 33 runs by the end of the 8th over. Jonny Bairstow scored 14 runs and was dismissed by Shami.
Other batters were sent out at regular intervals by intense bowling attacks from Indian bowlers. Kuldeep Yadav dismissed Jos Buttler and Liam Livingstone for 10 and 27 runs. By the end, England was folded for 129 runs losing all 10 wickets in the 35th over.
While speaking after the match Rohit Sharma said, “This was the game, a lot of characters in the squad. When the times were tough, all our experienced players stood up at the right time and got the game for us.
Looking at how the tournament has gone for us, batting second in the first five games, we had to come and bat here. We were challenged upfront, they bowled pretty well upfront.
For us to get to a total on a pitch that had something in it, we just wanted to get to a total where we could play with it. We were not great with the bat today. Losing three wickets isn’t the ideal situation. When you are in a situation like that, all you are looking to do is create that long partnership, which we got.
But a couple of guys threw it at the end, including myself. All I was thinking was to be positive, the balls in my area I want to put it away, that’s how you put pressure back on the bowlers and the opposition as well. When you look at the overall picture, I thought we were 30 runs short.
(On India’s new ball bowling) It’s not something you see every day. When you start your innings, you have to somehow try and get a couple of wickets to put the pressure back on the opposition.
With the experience that our seamers have now, you can always rely on and bank on them to get those crucial breakthroughs. That’s exactly what our seamers did. They exploited the conditions pretty well. There was a swing, there was a bit of lateral movement as well.
They put the ball in the right areas to create doubt in the batters’ minds. (Best bowling attack?) I think so. We have a good balance, a couple of good spinners, and the seamers have a lot of experience playing in these conditions. There’s a fair bit of options and experience as well.
It’s very important that the batters put runs on the board, give them something to work with, and then rely on them to do the magic,” he concluded.
India will be playing their next World Cup match against Sri Lanka on November 2 at Wankhede Stadium.
