ICC World Cup 2019: We Had Belief In Our Death Bowlers - Kedar Jadhav

Afghanistan was able to give some nervous moments to India in the 28th match of the World Cup at Rose Bowl, Southampton. India had to huff and puff to restrict Afghanistan to 213 after they had put on 224 runs on the board. Thus, the Men in Blue had to sweat hard to get two points under their belt. However, Kedar Jadhav stated that the team had the belief in their death bowler’s ability.

Jasprit Bumrah was right on the money with his yorkers and gave nothing away to the Afghanistan team. In fact, Bumrah was able to land nine yorkers on target in the two overs. Hence, Mohammed Shami had the cushion of 16 runs in the final over. Shami conceded a boundary of the first ball of the over but he was able to turn the tables.

The gun fast bowler was able to dismiss Mohammad Nabi and followed it with two accurate yorkers to bag the first hat-trick of this World Cup. Shami and Bumrah were on target with their bowling and took six wickets between them.

Jadhav said that the team knew that they were one wicket away from creating havoc in Afghanistan batting line-up. Only Mohammad Nabi was able to show the resistance. However, the rest of the batsmen got off to starts but could not convert them into a substantial score.

“Obviously, we had belief in our death specialist bowlers,” Jadhav told the reporters.

“Bumrah is the number one bowler. We knew we had to get just one wicket to break that partnership, and the next batsman would be finding it difficult to score those runs in that scenario. “So we knew just one wicket away from that crucial win.”

Meanwhile, India was able to post only 224 runs after Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bat first. It was a sluggish track and run-making was a task. Kedar Jadhav scored 52 runs but said that the team fell short by 20-30 runs. Hence, the bowlers should be given all the credit to defend the small total.

“The wicket was slow and they were playing with four spinners. The ball was turning…it was difficult to play shots,” he said.

“When the wicket is such, you need to analyse what sort of score we are looking at. Our actual plan was to look for around 250, we were targeting 250-260 but fell short by 20-30 runs. “So going into the fielding, we knew that we have to make up those 15, 20 runs in fielding. Obviously, credit to the bowlers that they defended this small total.”

India will play their next match against West Indies at Old Trafford on 27th June.