Hardik Pandya produced a Player-of-the-Match performance in India’s Super 8 fixture of the ongoing T20 World Cup against Bangladesh in Antigua on Saturday (June 22).
Batting at No. 6, the all-rounder slammed 50* off 27 balls while he managed to claim the prized scalp of Litton Das with the ball to script India’s thumping 50-run victory over Bangladesh.
After the game, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma heaped praise on Hardik’s contributions, emphasizing that his batting strengthens the team.
“I mentioned in the last game as well, his batting well puts us in a good stead. We want to finish well and Hardik being Hardik we know what he is capable of,” Rohit said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
“He is a very important player for us, if he can keep doing that, it will put us in good positions,” he added.
Invited to bat first, the Men in Blue racked up 196/5 on the board, courtesy of Hardik Pandya’s fifty and crucial contributions from Virat Kohli (37 off 28), Rishabh Pant (36 off 24) and Shivam Dube (34 off 24). Rohit Sharma himself set an aggressive tone with 23 runs off 11 balls.
“I have been talking about this for a long time now. It's about going there and putting that into work. Considering everything we played really well, adapted to the conditions,” the Indian captain said.
“All eight batters need to play their role, whatever it is. We saw one guy get 50 and we got 197, in T20 I don't believe we need to get fifties and hundreds, what matters is the pressure you put on the bowlers.
“All the batters from the word go played well and that's how we want to play as well. There is a lot of experience in the squad and we back them,” he said about the perfect execution of the game plan.
Rohit also acknowledged that the breeze plays a role in many Caribbean islands. “There's a little bit of wind factor here, overall we are very smart, overall we were good with bat and ball.”
Bangladesh were never really in the chase and managed 146 for 8 in their allotted 20 overs, succumbing to their second Group 1 defeat to be on the brink of elimination.
Kuldeep Yadav starred with the ball for India, claiming three wickets by conceding 19 runs in his four overs. Jasprit Bumrah (2-13 in 4 overs) and Arshdeep Singh (2-30 in 4 overs) also returned with two scalps each.
Bangladesh skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto admitted that his team conceded 30 runs too many after he won the toss and opted to bowl first.
“We were thinking about 160-170 when we put them into bat, but they batted well so credit to them.” Shanto said.
“We did not show as much intent as we needed with the bat, when we were chasing 190, we needed to show more intent especially in the first six (overs).”
