India captain Rohit Sharma sounded happy with the performance after India’s 50-run win over England in the first T20I match of the three-match series. India put on 199 runs batting first with many of their batters getting off to quick starts.
Sharma himself was in dashing form, scoring 24 runs with 5 boundaries before Moeen Ali got better of him. However, after his wicket, Deepak Hooda (33), Suryakumar Yadav (39), and Hardik Pandya (51) ensured that India didn’t lose the momentum, despite not scoring much in the last three overs, yet managed to post 198/8 in 20 overs.
“Great performance from ball one. All batters showed intent. Although the pitch was good, we played good shots and never got ahead of the game. You got make use of those six overs in the powerplay. There is a certain approach we want to take in the powerplay. You got to back yourself in this game as sometimes it comes off, sometimes it doesn't. The whole batting unit needs to understand the direction the team is taking and the guys were spot on today,” Sharma said after the match.
The captain said that he was quite impressed with Hardik Pandya’s showing with the ball. The all-rounder took four wickets for 33 runs from his full quota of four overs.
“I was impressed with his bowling. He wants to do that a lot more in the future, bowled quick and used his variations too,” he said.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar gave India the best start to their defense as he removed Jos Buttler for a first-ball duck in the first over.
“That's the reason we wanted to bat. Sometimes it does swing under the lights and we wanted to utilise that. Both the new ball bowlers used the swing and stopped their batters. We were sloppy on the field. Those catches should have been taken. Pretty sure we will field pretty well in the coming games,” Sharma concluded.
(Sky Sports inputs)
