The Indian cricket fans are pretty happy as team India has won the five matches T20 series against England by 3-2 after defeating the visitors in the fifth and the final T20 match. The Indian team management used this series as an opportunity to do some experimentation keeping in mind the ICC T20 World Cup and in yesterday’s match, the Indian innings was opened by the vice-captain Rohit Sharma and the skipper Virat Kohli. The Indian squad has been trying different opening pairs in this series but the manner in which Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have played, it seems that they will be the ones who will now open for India in T20s.
In the fifth T20 match which was played at Narendra Modi Stadium, the toss was won by the England side and they decided to bowl first. However, the decision was proved completely wrong by the Indian openers as they shared a partnership of 94 runs in 9 overs before Rohit Sharma got out for 64 in 34 balls and his innings included 4 fours and 5 sixes. Virat Kohli remained not out at 80 runs which he scored in 52 balls and his innings included 7 fours & 2 sixes. It resulted in India posting a huge total of 224/2 on the score board in the stipulated 20 overs.
Though England lost opener Jason Roy early for a duck, Jos Buttler played a good knock of 52 which he scored in 34 balls (2 fours & 4 sixes) along with Dawid Malan who scored 68 runs for which he played 46 balls (9 fours & 2 sixes). However after they both got out, the England cricket team lost the track as no other batsman was able to score runs at a quick pace. In the end, England was able to score 188/8 in the stipulated 20 overs and lost the match by 36 runs which resulted in the team losing the series as well.
In a virtual press conference, Hitman Rohit Sharma said that it was good to win the match with him opening with Virat Kohli. Talking about the future, he says that it will depend a lot on what the skipper wants and they will sit and analyse before deciding what is good for the team. He adds that if Virat opening with him is the right thing, they will definitely proceed with that.
In response to people’s opinion, Rohit Sharma says that things like what people are thinking or saying about who should play and who should not doesn’t hold any importance for them and they are not at all concerned with it. Hitman goes on to say that for them, what matters is bringing the right players and giving chance to those who are in form as they are preparing for the World Cup.
Despite hard-hitting knocks of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, it was Bhuvneshwar Kumar who was adjudged as the player of the match for taking two important wickets (Jason Roy & Jos Buttler) and for conceding only 15 runs in his 4 overs.