Rohit Shines, India Books Semi-Final Spot with Win Over Australia
Openers Duel Ends in India's Favor as Bowling Tightens Up in Slog Overs
With 92 runs off of 41 balls, Rohit Sharma showed off his beast nature. With a counterattack of his own (76 off 43 balls), Travis Head threatened to outscore India, just as he had done in the ODI World Cup final the previous year. However, this time the script read differently.
This time, Rohit was able to get the last laugh because his bowlers, who were defending 205/5, were able to restrict Australia to 181/7 in the slog overs by getting their lengths correct. India qualified for the semi-finals by winning their last Super Eight match by a margin of 24 runs. On Thursday, they play England in Guyana.
India was under pressure after the Australians, who had previously looked shook and had no backup plan to stop Rohit in addition to making other careless mistakes, got them down to 128/2 in 13 overs. that despite the appearance of a slight slowdown in the pitch.
However, a horrendous shot from Glenn Maxwell allowed Kuldeep Yadav (2/24) to take his second wicket; earlier, Australia's captain Mitch Marsh had lost his scalp to a brilliant catch made in the deep by Axar Patel, a left-arm wrist-spinner. Then Axar got his name in the wickets column thanks to a poor reverse-sweep by Marcus Stoinis.
Now that India was gaining pace again, Head found himself with a lot on his plate. In order to exact revenge, Rohit resorted to Jasprit Bumrah, who is playing at the peak of his game. The speedster changed his tempo to force the Australian opener to take a false shot. For India, the wicket essentially decided the match.
Returning to Rohit, his innings holds great significance because after he was removed by Mitchell Starc in the twelfth over, India was unable to muster more than 78 in the final 8.4 overs of their innings. Furthermore, India might not have reached even 200 if Marsh hadn't dropped a simple catch at backward point, allowing Hardik Pandya (27 not out off 17 balls) to get off on four.
The best bowler in Australia, Josh Hazlewood (1/14), rocked India early by dismissing the struggling Virat Kohli with a short delivery. But Rohit refused to give in to pressure from the Australians.
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