Indian captain Rohit Sharma showered praise on the team’s bowling line-up after their seven-wicket win against Bangladesh at Green Park, Kanpur on Tuesday. Sharma admitted that the Kanpur pitch didn’t have much help for the bowlers as it was flat and slow but to make a game out of it despite losing more than two days to rain was a commendable effort.
India was able to skittle out the Tigers at 233 in the first innings and then declared after scoring 285-9 in only 34.4 overs. The visitors were then bundled out for 146 runs in the second essay and the home team was comfortably able to chase down 95 runs to win the series by 2-0.
Meanwhile, Bumrah returned with figures of 3-50 in the first innings whereas Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Siraj, and Akash Deep bagged two wickets each.
Moreover, Bumrah, Ashwin, and Jadeja bagged three wickets each in the second essay. Ergo, India came up with a collective bowling effort and bowled only 121.2 overs to take Bangladesh’s 20 wickets.
Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation, “Once we lost two and a half days, when we came on day 4 we wanted to get them out as quickly as possible and see what we can do with the bat. All depended on how many runs they get. When they got bowled out for 230, it wasn’t about the runs we get but the overs we wanted to bowl at them. Which meant we had to try and up the run rate and score as many as possible. Pitch didn’t have much for the bowlers.”
Rohit concluded, “To make a game out of it on that pitch was a superb effort from the bowlers. And then the batters obviously with that mindset to buy into the thought of going and getting runs as quickly as possible. It was a risk we were willing to take because when you’re trying to bat like that, you can be bundled out for a low score. But we were ready for it even if we got bowled out for 100-150. We wanted to give ourselves a chance to be in the game and get a result.”
India will next take on Bangladesh in the opening T20I at the New Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Stadium, Gwalior on Sunday.
