The Indian skipper Rohit Sharma was a happy man after he registered his first win as a full-time T20I captain of team India. Though the match was filled with many nervy moments but the Indian cricket team held their nerves and gave a stunning team performance in all the departments of the game to take their side up 1-0 in the ongoing series.
Chasing a target of 164 runs, both the Indian openers – KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma carried on from where they left off in the UAE and got their team off to a flier yet again. Suryakumar Yadav, who came into bat at number 3, gave a stunning performance. He started to attack the Kiwi bowlers right from the word go.
Though, the top 3 batters of team India made useful contributions but couldn’t finish the job for his team. Rishabh Pant remained unbeaten till the end of the match and smashed a stunning boundary to help team India cross the target with 2 balls to spare.
After the match, talking at the post-match conference, Rohit Sharma expressed that the win didn’t come as easy as the team thought. He also expressed his happiness after Team India finished the game with a win. He said:
“It didn’t come as easy as we expected, so great learning for the guys, to understand what needs to be done, not about power-hitting all the time. As a captain and a team, happy that those guys finished the game off.“
He added:
“A good game for us, missing a few players, opportunity to other guys to show their ability. At one stage it was looking like 180-plus so a great effort from a complete bowling performance,”
He also appreciated the bowlers who played a crucial role in restricting New Zealand below 170. He feels it should be good learning for some members of the current squad. He said:
“Towards the end, we saw it wasn’t easy. But it was a great learning because those guys haven’t batted in that situation before for India. It was great learning for them to understand what needs to be done, as it’s not about power-hitting all the time while you need to try and put the ball to the left or right of the fielder and try and take singles or find the boundaries,”
He added:
“As a team, we’re happy that those guys got to bat in that situation and finished the game off. Missing a few players and to come and see what the new players have in terms of ability and the way our bowlers pulled it back in the last three to four overs was magnificent.”
