Virat Kohli: We Are Lucky To Have A Player Like Hardik In Our Side
Updated - 19 May 2019, 04:27 PM
The Indian team started off the first innings in jitters, it looked like they will not even get to a total of 200 as Nathan Coulter-Nile decimated the Indian top order to get the top three out of the four batsmen gifted their wickets to the bowler.
The host were left reeling at a score of 11/3 before middle order along with lower middle order helped India to put up a respectable total on board.
First, it was Kedar Jadhav who tried to rescue India’s innings along with Rohit Sharma. But Rohit fell into the trap by the Australian team and was dismissed off a short delivery. Jadhav continued the race to recuperate the innings and was dismissed of 40.
After his dismissal, once again it was another MS Dhoni show, along with Hardik Pandya who kept Australian bowlers wicketless for of a little less than 20 overs, during which they together put 118 runs to mark India’s comeback in the game.
Dhoni (79) and Pandya (83) though missed out on personal milestones of getting to a hundred, but their combined efforts helped the team to get a commanding total of 281, which was ultimately cut down to 163 and Australia needed 164 in 21 overs due to rain.
Team India, riding on a superb show from Jadhav, Dhoni, Pandya and bowlers finally won the game by a margin of 26 runs and opened the series with a win over the Steven Smith led side.
Indian captain Virat Kohli was full of praise for his team and here is what he said after the game,
“We spoke at the toss that we wanted to put on a big score. “We lost wickets but MS and Kedar played well. Hardik then, MS then finished it off like he does. Today was an example, Sri Lanka was the example of how good the middle and lower order can be. The bowlers were outstanding as well. It is a matter of giving players confidence. Hardik believes in himself, and his innings was the game-changer. He possesses all three skills equally and we are lucky to have him. Chahal is very brave and doesn’t say no to any situation. Bhuvi and Bumrah very clinical and our bank bowlers. After the rain, we felt this was our best T20 attack. We can’t have a more perfect combination.
