Indian captain Rohit Sharma lauded the collective effort of the whole team after the Champions Trophy win against New Zealand. The Men in Blue registered a four-wicket win against the Kiwis at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai on Sunday to win their seventh ICC title.
Rohit Sharma, who didn’t have a great tournament until the final, scored a match-winning knock of 76 runs off 83 balls in the run-chase of 252. The Indian captain scored seven fours and three maximums in his fine innings as he batted at the top of his game.
After the win, Rohit hailed KL Rahul for playing an unbeaten knock of 34 runs off just 33 balls and keeping his calm towards the end. Rohit also gave credit to all-rounder Hardik Pandya for playing a run-a-ball knock of 18 runs.
Rohit said in the post-match presentation, “Very very solid mind, never gets overawed by the pressure around him, that’s one of the reason we wanted to have him in the middle phase, to try and finish off the game for us. With his experience and class, there’s a bit of calmness when he bats and he picks the right shot to play in the pressure situation which allows the other guys who are batting around him to come out and play freely for example Hardik. He came out and played some really good shots in both games which gave us a little bit of a breather. Overall the batsmanship that was shown by all our batters throughout the tournament was superb.”
On the other hand, the Indian skipper showered praise on Varun Chakravarthy, who bagged nine wickets in three games of the Champions Trophy at an impressive average of 15.17. Rohit said Varun has something different about him and he was able to make the most of his skills. Chakravarthy bagged 2-45 in his quota of 10 overs in the final.
Rohit concluded, “He has got something different about him – I have said it many times. When you are playing on a pitch like that you want the batters to force on him and that’s where he becomes a lot more dangerous, that was the thought which went behind getting him into the squad and actually playing him. He didn’t start off in the tournament for us, but when he played against New Zealand and he got five wickets, we saw the kind of ability he possesses with the ball and we wanted to maximize that and he did not disappoint. He has got great quality about his bowling and luckily for us it came to use at various times.”
Rohit will now play for the Mumbai Indians in the upcoming IPL.
