India captain Shubman Gill expressed his confidence as the team’s leader after witnessing middle-order batters rise under pressure to ace a challenging chase. In the chase of 259, India was 160/4, but they overhauled the target thanks to an unbeaten partnership of 102 runs for the fifth wicket between Washington Sundar (52) and Axar Patel (57).
“We were put under pressure but how we bounced back was important. When you see your middle and lower middle-order score runs and finish the job, it gives confidence as a captain,” PTI quoted Gill as saying during the post-match presentation.
Gill implied that India is willing to experiment with different lineups in the next games in order to settle on one before the ODI World Cup in South Africa next year.
“We’ll try different combinations and see which gives us the best depth in both departments. The conditions were close to South Africa – the ball was kicking up, it wasn’t easy to score. The wicket then settled nicely,” he said.
Gill stated that given the batting unit’s expertise, they were confident in their ability to pursue the chase even when it was close to 300.
“We have a youngish bowling attack. Our batting is more experienced than our bowling. So, even if we had a target of 300-320, we back ourselves to chase that. “But our bowling in the middle phase was good. We bowled the right areas, after they got away at the end of the power play,” he said.
Axar, the player of the match, claimed to have focused on a stump-to-stump line.
“Very happy with the way I performed today. I thought of varying my pace and bowl stump-to-stump. Did exactly that. Got lucky that I picked up four wickets. “With Washington, it was about rotating the strike and finishing the game well. When I went in, Washy was there. The thought was building a partnership and finishing the game,” he said.
England captain Harry Brook bemoaned his team’s poor batting performance in the middle overs, when they lost five wickets quickly.
“Not ideal when you lose 5 for 20 in the middle period. Boys fought well and tried to get us back with the ball but losing 5 for 20 was never ideal. Liked to have played slightly better.”
“The partnership between Root and Dawson was crucial. We thought the pitch changed as it got slower. At the break, we thought we had enough if the pitch had remained the same,” said Brook.
