India were at their best in Guyana, as they defeated defending champions England in their T20 World Cup 2024 semi-final fixture. The win saw India book their place in the final, where they will face South Africa.
With the win, Rohit Sharma also became the most successful T20I skipper with 49 wins, overtaking Pakistan captain Babar Azam (48) for most wins as T20I skipper. The result saw India maintain their second-longest winning streaks in T20Is, bagging their 11th win (from December 2023 to June 2024). The previous best is 12 wins between November 2021 to February 2022. Meanwhile, finalists South Africa lead with the most wins in a single T20 World Cup edition, with 8* this year, India are second with 7*.
India won the toss and opted to bat in the rain-hit match. A half-century by Rohit (57 off 39 balls) saw India reach 171/7 in 20 overs, setting a target of 172 runs. Meanwhile, Chris Jordan took three wickets for England.
Chasing 172, England were bowled out for 103 in 16.4 overs, as Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel returned with figures of 3/19 and 3/23 respectively. Meanwhile, Jasprit Bumrah bagged two dismissals.
Speaking after the match, India captain Rohit said, “Very satisfying to win this game. We worked really hard as a unit. To win this game like that was a great effort from everybody. We adapted to the conditions really well. The conditions were a little challenging, we had to adapt and that’s been the success story for us so far till this game. We have adapted to the conditions really well, played the conditions really well.”
“The bowlers and the batters, if they play according to the conditions, things falls in place and that’s exactly what happened for us today. Very pleasing to see how we came through this game. At one stage, we were feeling 140-150 and as the game went on, we got some runs in the middle, me and Surya. We got that partnership, then we said another 25 runs more.
“I can set the target in my mind, but I don’t want to let anyone know about it, to the batters … because … they are all all instinctive players and I want them to go out there and play freely without thinking too much about what’s the par score. We bat well, we understand the condition well, we will get to a good score and that’s exactly what happened. We got to 170 which I thought was a very good score on that pitch and then the bowlers were fantastic,” he added.
