With the victory in the Asia Cup 2023 finals against Sri Lanka, India extended their record for most titles in the Asia Cup tournament with eighth win.
Rohit Sharma on winning the Asia Cup 2023
India was scheduled to play the finals of the Asia Cup 2023 against Sri Lanka on September 17, at R. Premadasa Stadium, where India won by 10 wickets.
Sri Lanka won the toss and chose to bat where they struggled to score runs against Indian aggressive bowlers and ended up scoring only 50 runs losing all the wickets. With a fifty-one-run partnership scored by Indian openers, the side easily won the game.
India won their last Asia Cup title in 2018 while playing the finals against Bangladesh where India won by 3 wickets. On this occasion, the Indian skipper Rohit Sharma was delighted about the victory and said “Yeah was a great performance. To come out and play like that in the final shows the mental character.
Great start with the ball and clinical finish with the bat. I was standing in the slips, and something we take pride in – our seamers have been working really hard. Very very clear in their mind. It was good to see that. Such a performance we will cherish for a long time. I never thought it’s going to do that much.”
Comes down to the skillset of individuals. Siraj has to be given a lot of credit. Rare for seamers to move the ball in the air and off the pitch. He’s coming off age. We did everything we could’ve achieved as a team in this tournament. Look forward to the series that is coming up in India, and then the World Cup.
The way Hardik and Ishan batted in that pressure situation against Pakistan, and then KL and Virat getting hundreds. The way Gill has been batting. Guys have stood up at various stages,” he concluded.
Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Perera opened the innings for Sri Lanka while Jasprit Bumrah opened the bowling attack. Pathum Nissanka was dismissed with 2 runs by Bumrah where Kusal Perera and Kusal Mendis was sent out with a duck and 17 runs by Siraj. After the fall of Dhananjaya de Silva for four runs Sri Lanka was down to five wickets scoring only 12 runs on the fourth over.
Other batters struggled against the terrific bowling attack of India, where Mohammed Siraj dismissed 6 batters while Hardik Pandya scalped three wickets. After losing all 10 wickets Sri Lanka scored only 50 runs in the second ball of the 16th over.
After folding Sri Lanka for low scores, Ishan Kishan and Shubman Gill opened the innings while Pramod Madushan opened the bowling attack. Ishan Kishan scored 23 runs from 18 deliveries including 3 boundaries while Shubman Gill scored 27 runs on 19 deliveries which includes 6 boundaries. On the first ball of the 7th over, India achieved the target of 51 runs and won the game with 10 wickets.
India will be playing a three-ODI match series against Australia before the World Cup Warmup games. The first ODI match was scheduled to be played on September 22 at Punjab National Association Stadium.
