Team India’s fielding coach T. Dilip has added that the Indian team will have momentum heading into the 2023 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand on Wednesday. He also shared that the hosts will look to maintain their high standards in the knockouts as well. However, India defeated the Netherlands by 160 runs in the last match of the league stage at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Sunday as well.
“I think you can really see that we won all the league matches till now. So, the momentum is with us and the most important thing we thrive as a team is to play to our standards. That’s what we’re looking for and you can clearly see that we have done really well with them [New Zealand] in Dharamsala. So, we take those positive things. Go ahead and play the day,” he said.
While talking about the areas of concern ahead of the knockout phase of World Cup 2023, Dilip said that the players are in a good frame of mind and they are likely to keep the momentum on.
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“If you can see, all the batters have got starts, and they have been in good nick. Bowlers are also picking wickets. Not only the spinners, the fast bowlers are also doing the job. Even the intensity at which we are going about [things] is outstanding. We already played in Mumbai. So, I think it would be a good contest on that particular day. But from our point of view, I think our standards have been really up there,” the fielding coach further added.
Meanwhile, Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul hit centuries for India against the Netherlands. Apart from playing well with the bat, Rahul has done a great job as a wicketkeeper. Admitting that there were concerns over him taking the gloves since he was coming back from injury after a long time, Dilip lauded Rahul for accepting the challenge. In nine matches of the 2023 World Cup, Rahul has grabbed 11 catches and has affected one stumping.
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“He has been doing a truly amazing job as a wicketkeeper. Of course, when he came back from a long injury layoff, that was something that we considered as a challenging factor. He has come up really well. He is someone who has been keeping wickets from a young age, but we identified a couple of factors and worked upon it,” T. Dilip concluded.
