Asia Cup 2018, Final - Overall it Was a Dominating Performance from the Boys - Rohit Sharma

Team India skipper, Rohit Sharma was a satisfied man after the Men in Blue lifted their 7^th Asia Cup title after beating Bangladesh by three wickets on the final delivery of the tournament.

It was dramatic scenes at the Dubai International Stadium, as it turned out to be a humdinger. Fortune fluctuated from one side to the other. But in the end, it was India who held their nerves and scraped through. It was an injured Kedar Jadhav who hit the winning runs. It was indeed a great effort by both the teams.

Rohit Sharma explained the middle-order batsmen didn’t get enough chances which they would have wanted them to. But, he felt whenever they got the opportunities they showed signs of handling pressure well. Sharma agreed they didn’t finish, but he was happy with their progress. He felt it was a dominating performance from them in all three departments of the game.

“As far as batting is concerned, the middle order didn’t get enough chances as we wanted them to because the top order batsmen batted quite a lot in the tournament. But whenever they have got chances, they have shown signs of handling pressure well. It’s a different issue that they didn’t finish it off, but I think they handled the pressure well. So if we see overall, it was dominating performance with both bat and ball,” Rohit Sharma said during the post-match press conference.

The India captain felt fielding is an area where there is still room for improvement. However, he was pretty satisfied with the performance of the fielding unit.

He mentioned after each match, he checked the match stats, and it revealed the fielders had atleast saved 15-20 runs in most of the games. Rohit felt the fielders saving that many runs in a low scoring match like the final help a lot.

Rohit Sharma feels fielding can improve a bit

“Fielding is an aspect which we can improve a bit because the catches that get dropped shouldn’t be dropped. One or two catches I can understand. Our fielding has been good in 5-6 games continuously. After every game, I would see the fielding stats. We had saved 15-20 runs consistently in each game. I think in such low scoring games it plays a huge role. Overall I am pretty happy as a captain and as a player too,” Rohit said during the post-match press conference after India lifted the Asia Cup for the record 7^th time.

Meanwhile, Rohit also stated it was the freedom to go out there and express themselves without the fear of losing their wickets brought out their best in a crunch game like the final.

“For us as a captain or a coach, we got to make sure that they (players) have that liberty to play their game. Not to feel any pressure. And of course, I have led India before, not for a while but for a one-off tournament, so I understand the dynamics of this team, how we play cricket, how we want to go forward as a team.

“So I think taking everything into consideration, we wanted to move forward, and I think in this tournament I can clearly say that we ticked all boxes here. And that is the challenge now for us when we go and play, wherever we play, that is the challenge for us to keep continuing to tick those boxes and get better as a team,” he explained.