Indian skipper Rohit Sharma is delighted with the way they played in the league stage of the World Cup 2023. The hosts won their ninth match on the bounce after they convincingly defeated the Netherlands by 160 runs at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru on Sunday.
India has been a force to reckon with in their own conditions and they have ticked the right boxes as a unit. The Rohit Sharma-led team dominated all of their nine matches and they were able to find a way to bounce back whenever they were put under the pump by the opposition. Thus, there are hardly any weak links in the Indian team and they have done a magnificent job.
India has also come up with a collective effort with both bat and ball. The hosts posted a huge score of 410 runs on the board against the Netherlands, which is their second-highest score in World Cup history. KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer scored 102 and 128 runs respectively whereas the bowlers skittled out the Dutch at 250.
Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation, “Very pleased with how we have played in these nine games. Very clinical from game one till today. That’s because different individuals have stepped up at different times. This is a good sign for the team when everyone wants to take the responsibility and get the job done for the team.”
India has been able to make the most of their conditions but Rohit feels playing different oppositions has been a challenge for them.
He added, “Although we play a lot of cricket in India, we know the conditions, but still when you play different opposition, that’s the challenge in different conditions. We adapted really well. We started the tournament four games in a row chased and then we had to bat first, put the runs on the board, then seamers did the rest along with the spinners.”
On the other hand, Rohit also experimented a bit against the Netherlands and gave the ball to Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav and also rolled his arm over. In fact, Kohli and Rohit were able to bag one wicket apiece.
He said, “When you have five bowlers, you want to create those options within the team. Today we had nine (bowling) options, it’s important, this was the game where we could have tried certain things. The seamers bowling those wide yorkers when it was not needed, but we wanted to do that. As a bowling unit, we wanted to try doing something different and see what we can achieve.”
The first semifinal will be played between India and New Zealand at the Wankhede Stadium, in Mumbai on Wednesday.
