New York [US]: Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting showered praise on India captain Rohit Sharma after the Men in Blue defeated their arch-rivals Pakistan by 6 runs in the T20 World Cup 2024 and said that he is very ‘experienced’.
Rohit scored 13 runs off 12 balls and slammed 1 four and 1 six after opening the batting. Rohit’s knock did not last for a long time after being dismissed by Shaheen Afridi in the third over.
In a video shared on the official Instagram account of ICC, Ponting said that Rohit’s captaincy was “outstanding” against Pakistan on Sunday. The former cricketer also praised Hardik Pandya and said that he was ‘outstanding’ in the high-voltage match.
“Rohit Sharma is a very experienced captain, isn’t he? And I just saw him then and said, mate, your captaincy today was outstanding. I don’t think he could have done much more. You think about a lot of the bowlers that he’s got in his team. He’s actually had those bowlers in the IPL as well, not only for India. So he understands them, knows when he can use them, but it’s one thing for the captain to set a plan, the bowlers are going to go ahead and execute it and Hardik was outstanding,” Rohit said.
Ponting pointed out that the wicket was different in the second inning. He added that the wicket dried out quickly when the sun came out.
“I thought he did a really good job with the ball as well, and then you break it down and this has been a wicket that the seamers have liked, but their spinner bowled four overs for 20 as well and Patel picked up a big wicket. Yeah, the wicket was definitely different in the second innings. I mean, you can see Pakistan got the ball to hold up through natural variation, and you know, it was just a little bit tacky, but when the sun came out, the wicket dried out quite quickly and then you have to, you have to adapt and adjust on the run. I thought he did that really well,” he added.
Recapping the match, India defeated Pakistan by six runs in a low-scoring thriller in New York’s Nassau International Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
Pakistan won the toss and put India to bat first. But, Indian batters were off to a patchy start on this tough surface as star openers Virat Kohli (4) and Rohit Sharma (13) failed to score big.
Rishabh Pant (42 off 31) took the charge with his aggressive innings and built useful partnerships with Axar Patel and Suryakumar Yadav. But, the lower middle order crumbled under the pressure and India was restricted to 119 in 19 overs.
Haris Rauf (3/21) and Naseem Shah (3/21) were the top bowlers for Pakistan. Mohammed Amir got two scalps while Shaheen Shah Afridi got one.
In the run-chase, Pakistan took a more measured approach and Mohammed Rizwan (31 in 44 balls, with a four and six) held one end steady. However, Bumrah (3/14) and Hardik Pandya (2/24) ran through the Pakistani batting and bagged the crucial wickets of skipper Babar Azam (13), Fakhar Zaman (13), Shadab Khan (4), Iftikhar Ahmed (5) as well.
Wickets falling at regular intervals kept building the pressure on Pakistan. With 18 runs needed in the final over, Naseem Shah (10*) tried to win it for Pakistan, but the accurate bowling by Arshdeep Singh (1/31) made sure Pakistan fell short by six runs.
Bumrah secured the ‘Player of the Match’ for his match-winning spell. After this victory, India sits at the top of Group A with two wins in two games and four points. Pakistan is in fourth place, having lost both their games to the USA and India, and their knockout stage chances look slim.