“The way the bowlers came in and bowled in front with the new ball, and getting that wicket… when you have a [India scored 397] This way, you have to take the wicket in advance. “We did just that,” Rohit told Star Sports after the match. “Today in the semi-final, I can’t say there wasn’t any pressure. When you play a match, there’s always pressure, and obviously the semi-final adds a little extra.” There. But I think the guys were doing the job.
“To be honest, we wanted to take the semi-final out of the equation, and not think too much about it. We just wanted to keep doing what we were doing in the first nine games we played, and things came out really well for us in the second half as well.”
“I have played a lot of cricket here [at the Wankhede]. So I know any outcome on that basis… You can’t relax, you have to get the job done as quickly as possible and keep at it. We knew there would be pressure on us that at some point there would be a partnership. We just have to stay consistent and I think that’s what we did.”
Rohit Sharma
“When the scoring rate is above nine all the time, you have to keep taking your chances,” Rohit said. “Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. They gave us chances, we didn’t take them. But credit to them also in the middle, where Mitchell and Williamson shot well.
“Again, for us, it was important to stay calm. At one point, the crowd went completely silent, that’s the nature of the match. But we knew we had to pull something up our sleeves and we needed the magic, either a good catch or a run out or maybe a delivery.” Magical, but we tried everything we couldn’t do [break through]But Shami was brilliant again.
“I have played a lot of cricket here [at the Wankhede]. So I know any outcome on that basis… You can’t relax, you have to get the job done as quickly as possible and keep at it. We knew there would be pressure on us that at some point there would be a partnership. We just have to stick together and I think that’s what we did. We were calm even though we were a bit clumsy on the field. But this could happen. We have nine perfect games on the field. So, these things are bound to happen. But I’m glad we were able to get the job done in the end.”
Wankhede’s side are known to be batting friendly, and they played no different that day.
“The top five or six players, whenever they get a chance, they really make it count,” Rohit said. “Very, very happy to see what Ayr did for us in this tournament. Gil, the way he played up front was fantastic. Unfortunately, he started having cramps so we had to bring him back.
“Kohli was brilliant as usual, played his trademark innings and reached this historic milestone as well. Overall, the batting was fantastic, and that is the kind of template we want to bat with moving forward.”
