Image Credit- ICC
In this World Cup, India had to set a total for the
first time ever. And they had a rough start at 40 for 3 in the 12th over when
they faced England in Lucknow. From there, their captain and Man of the Match,
Rohit Sharma, emphasised that he needed to “bat to the situation” and
apply all of his skills on a difficult pitch.
“It’s just not about going and playing my shots,
when you have that much experience you’ve got to use that experience and do
whatever is necessary for the team, and it was at that point in time necessary
for me to take the game as deep as possible and create that partnership and get
to a decent total,” Rohit said after the game.
After England put India in, he raced to 17 off 11 in
the first two overs. However, as England kept finding ways to score runs at the
other end, he eased his way to 29 off 40 before hitting his next boundary,
which came in the 14th over as he reached 87 off 101, setting up India for a
100-run victory.
Though Rohit believed India had left a lot of runs on
the pitch, the victory margin may be as convincing as they come. Before falling
13 short of a century, he had completed the first repair work with KL Rahul,
putting on a stand of 91 for the fourth wicket and then adding 33 more in
tandem with Suryakumar Yadav. From there, England chipped away
regularly, tying India down to 229 for 9.
“I still felt like we were 20-30 runs short once
we finished,” Rohit said. “The new ball was a bit challenging and
then obviously as the game went on the ball got softer, it was not easy to
rotate strike. But we said in the middle that we’ve got to keep digging in,
keep digging in and then, finally, you know we got to a decent partnership
there, but like I said we were 20-30 runs short towards the end.”
Regardless of the conditions, Rohit said some of
India’s issues came down to their batters being loose.
“We were not great with the bat today, losing
three wickets in the first powerplay isn’t the ideal situation but when you are
in a situation like that all you are looking to do is create that long
partnership, which we got. But then couple of guys threw it [away] at the end,
including myself,” Rohit said. “But at that stage all I was thinking
was to be positive and the balls in my areas I wanted to put it away. That’s
how you put the pressure back on the bowler and the opposition as well but,
yeah, when you look at the overall picture, I thought we were 30 runs short
there.”