India has picked up the sixth victory in a row, as they defeated defending champions England by 100 runs. After setting a target of 230 runs, the bowling attack of Bumrah, Shami, Kuldeep and Jadeja succeeded in restricting the English side to 129.
Skipper Rohit Sharma said, This was the game, a lot of character in the squad. All our experienced players stood up at the right time and got the game for us. Looking at how the tournament has gone for us, we had to come and bat here. We were challenged upfront, they bowled pretty well upfront. To get to a total on a pitch that had something in it, we just wanted to get to a total we could play with. We were not great with the bat. Losing three wickets isn’t the ideal situation. Couple of guys threw it, including myself. When you look at the overall picture, we were 30 runs short. It’s not something you see everyday. When you start your innings, you have to try and get a couple of wickets to put the pressure back on the opposition. You can always rely on our seamers to come good and get those crucial breakthroughs. They exploited the conditions. They put the ball in the right areas. We have a good balance (in the bowling), there’s a bit of options and with experience as well. It’s very important that the batters put runs on the board.
Jos Buttler, English skipper said, Very disappointed. At the halfway stage, chasing 230 and seeing how wet it got, we fancied ourselves, same old story. I wasn’t sure if dew would come or not. Just the gut feel said that we wanted to chase. That’s as good we’ve been with the ball throughout the tournament. We created good pressure,, took wickets, if you said we are chasing 230, we would have been happy with that. Personally, I wanted to try and soak some pressure up, come through that phase and then build a partnership and sot of kill the momentum that India had. It’s about committing and executing your skill. Chasing 230, there wasn’t scoreboard pressure. It’s about trying to come through that phase. We are just falling short whichever way we are doing it at the minute. Our answers on a postcard, I think. Some top players and we are a long way short of our best. Excellent start in the powerplay, there was a bit of indifferent bounce, the ground fielding was good. It felt like today was the day, but we didn’t back it up with the bat. We still got lots to play for.
