Team India registered another dominating win against England in the third and final T20I at Bristol to clinch the series by a 2-1 margin. Rohit Sharma’s third century in T20Is along with Hardik Pandya’s all-around performance led India to their sixth consecutive T20I series win. The Indian skipper Virat Kohli also acknowledged Pandya’s effort of 4/38 and deemed him as the standout performer of the day.
Speaking at the post-match presentation, a happy Kohli complemented his bowlers and said, “The comeback from the bowlers was outstanding. At one stage we thought they’d end up getting 225-230 which would’ve been tough. But the character they showed, that’s something we’re very proud of. Just hit our areas better I guess (in the second ten overs). We have the quality to bowl wicket-taking deliveries as well. Applied decent pressure on the batsmen and pulled the game back nicely. 25-30 runs in this format can be massive.”
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Reflecting on Pandya’s heroics, Virat said, “Pandya is a really good all-around cricketer. He’s confident with his skills with bat and ball. He’s sure of what he wants to do. Pitch was really, really flat. We enjoyed ourselves as batsmen. England got 200-odd, we got there with few balls to spare. Don’t like to look at hindsight and say we could’ve added another bowler. Guys came up with the goods. We’re gonna continue and try different things. You saw the kind of energy and attitude we had on the field. Feels great to have a series win at the start of the tour.”
Meanwhile, a dejected Eoin Morgan also expressed disappointment and said, “Tremendous start with the bat. Roy and Buttler prove a dominant force at the top, we didn’t do their platform justice. Probably fell between 20-30 short, just in our execution of shots. Faltered in execution – finding our areas and picking the balls to hit. Normally it’s one of the best parts of our game.”
The English skipper concluded by stating that Team India bowled well on the flat track as they expected to score better score than 198.
