After India’s 6-run victory over Australia in the warm-up game at Gabba on Monday (October 17), skipper Rohit Sharma said they should have scored 10-15 runs more and also called for improvement in bowling.
Invited to bat first, the Men in Blue rode on half-centuries from KL Rahul (57 off 33 balls) and Suryakumar Yadav (50 off 33 balls) to post 186/7 in their allotted 20 overs.
Defending the total, India bundled out the hosts for 180 in 20 overs, with Harshal Patel and Mohammad Shami bowling brilliantly in the final two overs.
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“I thought we batted well, towards the end we could have added 10-15 runs more. We always want a set batter to stay till the end, SKY did it, overall a great batting effort with nice bounce, was a pitch where you can trust your shots. You got to be smart with batting on grounds like these. You can't forget to push the balls into the gaps, scoring 8-9 runs in an over can be quite an effective plan. It was a great practice game for us,” Rohit said in the post-match presentation ceremony.
Australia needed 16 runs off the last two overs with 6 wickets in hand but Harshal and Shami managed to steal a win for India from the jaws of defeat.
While Harshal conceded only 5 runs on the penultimate over and claimed the prized scalp of Aaron Finch (76 off 54), Shami gave away just 4 runs and took the wickets of Pat Cummins, Josh Inglis, and Richardson in the final over of Australia’s innings.
However, the Indian captain expected more from his bowlers as he called for improvement in that department.
“There is room for improvement, but I want more consistency from the bowlers. You need to keep things simple and hit the deck hard. Overall a good game for us, they had a decent partnership and that put us under pressure. He (Shami) is coming back after a long time, so we wanted to give him an over. Wanted to give him a challenge and let him bowl the final over, and you saw what he did,” Rohit added.
India will take on New Zealand in their second warm-up fixture at the same venue on October 19 while they will open their T20 World Cup 2022 campaign against arch-rivals Pakistan at the iconic MCG on October 23.
(With Cricbuzz inputs)
