India’s captain Rohit Sharma was delighted with the performance of his team after they defeated West Indies comprehensively by six wickets at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Sunday.
It was India’s 1000th ODI and they came up with a nigh-perfect performance against the tourists.
The Indian bowlers were right on the money as they were able to skittle out the opposition at 176 runs after Rohit Sharma won the toss and decided to bowl first. Yuzvendra Chahal was the pick of the bowlers as he scalped four wickets and conceded 49 runs in 9.5 overs he bowled.
Furthermore, Washington Sundar and Prasidh Krishna were brilliant as well. Sundar dismissed Brandon King and Darren Bravo in the same over and it pushed the Windies on the back foot. Sundar took three wickets in his nine overs while Krishna bagged a brace in his quota of 10 overs.
Rohit Sharma feels they could have chased down the target without losing wickets in the end and they could have also restricted the opposition to even a smaller target as the visitors were 78-6 at one stage.
Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation, “I don’t believe in a perfect game. You cannot be perfect. We want to keep getting better. All in all a great effort from everyone. We ticked all boxes. Pretty happy with that. With that bat we could’ve finished with not so many wickets, that is one. Could also have created pressure on their lower order. Don’t want to take any credit away. The way we bowled upfront and then towards the back end was good to see. We want to keep getting better as a team. The end goal is we should be able to achieve what the team wants. If the team requires us to do something different, have to do it. Don’t think we have to change a lot”.
He added, “All I ask from players is to keep challenging themselves. I’ve been off for a while, haven’t played for two months but I was back home hitting the balls. Knew there was a long season ahead. Had a good net session here. I was confident going into this game. Can take a lot of positives from this game. The pitch had something in it. There was softness in the pitch early on. In this particular game, the toss became important. But honestly want to take the toss away from the play, don’t want to depend on it a lot. But if you do, you have to take advantage”.
Meanwhile, Rohit Sharma was playing competitive cricket after a long gap of two months but he was able to hit the ground running as he scored a free-flowing knock of 60 runs off just 51 balls.
Suryakumar Yadav (34) and debutant Deepak Hooda (26) then added the finishing touches as India got over the line with 22 overs to spare. The second ODI will be played on Wednesday at the same venue.
