India’s T20I skipper, Rohit Sharma asserted that the fielding of the team has been the biggest positive to take out of their 3-0 T20I series win over New Zealand. He also showered praises on the spinner, R Ashwin for his phenomenal comeback in the T20 squad. A 73-run win in Kolkata on Monday helped the men in blue to whitewash the T20 World Cup runners-up in a series in which both sides rested a number of key players.
During the post-match press conference, Rohit Sharma said, “There have been a lot of positives and first of them is our fielding. We have fielded very well throughout the series. Whenever I go to the ground, my thinking as a captain is always about how well we are fielding and how many runs we are saving on the field. In our last two games we stopped about 15 runs on the field and I think today also we did a very good job. We managed to get two run-outs.”
Rohit Sharma said that India’s bowling also has been positive. India restricted New Zealand to 164/6 and 153/6 in the first two matches before dismissing them for just 111 runs on Sunday.
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As per the quotes in India Today, Rohit Sharma said, “We managed to restrict a batting lineup as strong as New Zealand’s to around 160 despite them making a good start in the powerplay in both those matches. Those matches could have gone anywhere considering how they started but we came back really well and restricted them. The spinners were great, Axar (Patel) and (Ravichandran) Ashwin did well and today (Yuzvendra) Chahal got a chance and he showed what he can do.”
Talking about the comeback of R Ashwin, Rohit Sharma said, “It has been a great comeback from him. He has proven himself with the red ball over the years and even in white-ball cricket, he doesn’t have a bad record. Now the way he has come back and bowled in the UAE and then here just shows the quality that he has. He is always an attacking option for a captain. When you have someone like him in the squad it is always an opportunity to take wickets in the middle (overs) and we understand how important that is.”
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He further elaborated, “That is the phase when you can put the breaks on the scoring rate and take wickets. Ashwin provides that (option) along with Axar (Patel). Both these guys are wicket-taking options in this phase and for them, it’s never about surviving. It is always about ‘how I can get the batter out or put them under pressure. That is how they think and come up with all the time.”
R Ashwin has been missing the action in white-ball cricket for four years before being selected for the T20 World Cup. While India had a dismal campaign, Ashwin’s performances earned applause from the cricketing fraternity. Rohit said that while the bowlers they used in the series had done well, he would still like to find sixth and seventh bowling options from among the top five batsmen.
