Indian captain Rohit Sharma was delighted with his team’s performance after they thrashed England by 50 runs in the first T20I at Rose Bowl, Southampton on Thursday. India posted a par score of 198 runs on the board after Sharma won the toss and decided to bat first.
India had a great PowerPlay as they scored 66-2 in the first six overs with Rohit leading from the front as he scored 24 runs from 14 balls with the help of five fours. Deepak Hooda was also able to hit the ground running while Ishan Kishan was the only batter who struggled a bit. Suryakumar Yadav also scored a fine knock of 39 runs from 19 balls.
Rohit added they wanted to adopt an aggressive approach and make the most of the PowerPlay overs, when only two fielders are allowed outside the 30-yard circle. In fact, Indian batters kept attacking the England bowlers despite losing wickets and this approach is good to note as India has been a bit circumspect in the T20I format.
On the other hand, Hardik Pandya scored a fine knock of 51 runs off just 33 balls. Furthermore, the all-rounder scalped four wickets in his quota of four overs to come up with a fine performance.
Pandya became the first Indian player and the fifth overall to score a fifty and take four wickets in a T20I game. However, India’s catching was not up to the mark as they dropped five catches and Rohit Sharma wants his team to pull up their socks.
It was a dominating performance from India and they also did a fine job with the ball as Bhuvneshwar Kumar provided a perfect start by dismissing England captain Jos Buttler. Indian bowlers kept taking wickets at regular intervals to push the hosts on the backfoot.
Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation, “Great performance from ball one. All batters showed intent. Although the pitch was good, we played good shots and never got ahead of the game. You got to make use of those six overs in the powerplay. There is a certain approach we want to take in the powerplay. You got to back yourself in this game, sometimes it comes off, sometimes it doesn’t. The whole batting unit needs to understand the direction the team is taking and the guys were spot on today.”
He added, “I was impressed with his (Hardik) bowling. He wants to do that a lot more in the future, bowled quick and used his variations too. Of course his batting is there for us to see. That’s the reason we wanted to bat (ball swinging under lights). Sometimes it does swing in the evenings and we wanted to utilize that. Both the new ball bowlers used the swing and stopped their batters. We were sloppy on the field. Those catches should have been taken. Pretty sure we will field pretty well in the coming games.”
India will face England in the second T20I at Edgbaston, Birmingham on Saturday.
