Captain Rohit Sharma lavished praise on Suryakumar Yadav for showing a lot of maturity in the tricky chase against the USA on Wednesday at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, New York. Surya, who is known for his 360-degree batting, showed controlled aggression as things got tricky for India at one stage, but the ICC number 1 ranked showed a different side to his flamboyance gameplay.
Chasing a 111-run target, India lost their star opening pair Virat Kohli (0) and Rohit (3) early, which put India on the backfoot. Meanwhile, in-form Rishabh Pant’s departure on 18 gave the Indian fans a bit of a scare, but Suryakumar Yadav and Shivam Dube rescued them from a tricky position. The duo shared an unbeaten 72-run stand to take India over the line. Surya, scored an unbeaten 50 off 49 balls which was laced with two sixes and as many fours. Dube, who looked sluggish at the start, held his ground and remained not out on 31 off 35 balls.
Rohit was impressed with Surya’s calm display in the middle as he took the onus on himself to take India over the line.
“He showed he has a different game to him, that’s what you expect from experienced players. Credit to the way he stuck through today to take the game deep and win it for us,” Rohit said in the post-match presentation.
The swashbuckling opener, who got dismissed early in the chase, said that the team knew it would not have been easy to chase the moderate target and credited Surya and Dube for sealing India’s third win.
“Knew it would be tough. Credit to us for the way we held our nerve and got that partnership. Credit to Surya and Dube for showing the maturity and taking us through,” he added.
Meanwhile, it was a former Mumbai player – Saurabh Netravalkar who got rid of Kohli and Rohit cheaply in the chase. A couple of players who used to play for Mumbai are now representing the USA team in the T20 World Cup as Rohit was impressed with their growth.
“Lot of these guys have played cricket together, very happy to see their progress. Saw them last year in MLC as well, they are all hard-working guys,” he said.
Earlier, Rohit won the toss and elected to field first and his bowlers didn’t disappoint him at all and restricted USA to 110/8 in 20 overs. Arshdeep Singh was the pick of the bowlers as he registered his best figures in T20Is – 4/9.
“We knew bowlers had to take the lead, run scoring was difficult. All the bowlers did the job, particularly Arshdeep,” the Indian skipper said while praising the bowling unit.
With the win, India have become the first side to qualify for Super 8 from Group A as Rohit said that the three wins have instilled confidence in the side for the next round.
“It is a big relief, playing cricket here wasn’t easy. We had to stick through till the end in all 3 games. Will take a lot of confidence from these wins,” he added.
