The era of Rohit Sharma after being announced as the permanent skipper of the Indian cricket team has begun brilliantly. He is yet to lose a game, winning three games against New Zealand and now 6 against the Windies.
Rohit Sharma-led Indian cricket team defeated Windies in the third and final T20 International match of the three-match T20I series by 17 runs at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata.
India lost the toss and was invited to bat first. Ishan Kishan and Rohit Sharma opened the innings for the Indian side but they could only add 10 runs together. However, Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan added good 53 runs together and in the end, SKY and Venkatesh Iyer had an exceptional 91-runs partnership that helped team India set a target of 184 runs on the scoreboard.
While chasing the target, the West Indies couldn’t get to a good start, after having lost both their openers Shai Hope and Kyle Mayers very early in the innings. Everyone excluding Ravi Bishnoi and Avesh Khan picked wickets. Though Shardul Thakur gave a much-needed breakthrough to team India, it was Harshal Patel who stole the show by picking 3 wickets. He was terrific in the 19th over, which changed the game.
Later, after winning the game against West Indies, during the presser, Indian captain Rohit Sharma expressed his excitement after the 3-0 series win and he had said that the team got pretty much everything they were looking for in the series. He said:
“The team that used to chase, there are not many people here from that squad. We wanted to bat first and chase as well. Because our middle order is fairly new. Happy with the series. Pretty much got everything we wanted.”
He added: “We do understand we are very young as a team. We are still a good chasing side, but a lot of the players are missing. It was pleasing to see guys bailing the team out from situations. Good sign moving forward as a group and something to be proud of.”
Rohit Sharma also shared the biggest takeaway from the recently-concluded series. He was highly impressed with the performances of the Indian middle=order batting unit and the pace bowling unit of the team. Showering praises on the performance of the Indian batting-order and youngsters taking charge of the game, Rohit said:
“Biggest take away in the ODIs was the middle order making it count. I was impressed with our seam bowling in ODIs. And even here. Harshal is new. Avesh is on debut. Shardul is in and out. So we wanted to see how the guys react and it was a good challenge to defend in both games against a quality West Indies team.”
Rohit concluded by saying that the reason behind giving rest to the players like Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant for the upcoming T20I series against Sri Lanka is the team management wants to keep them fresh. He said:
“Few guys miss out for the Sri Lanka series because we want to keep them fresh. But we have the World Cup in mind and we are trying to give game time for individuals. I am not someone who looks at the opposition, I would like to see what we can do as a team.”
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