Image Credit- ICC
Ultimately, India scored more runs in their opening
ten overs (91) than South Africa did during their whole innings thanks to the
relentless efforts of Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill against their new-ball
bowlers.
Having ignited the fire needed to score 326 for 5, a
total considerably above par on an Eden Gardens ground that assisted spin,
Rohit was the catalyst as India shot beyond fifty in the fifth over and
concluded with 40 off 24 balls. However, he claimed that his strategy was not
planned after the game.
“Not really, that is something we didn’t discuss,
to be honest,” Rohit said at the post-match presentation when asked
whether there was a conscious effort to be aggressive against South Africa.
“Gill and I have been batting together for a long time now and that’s how
we have batted for the majority of our innings together. We let our instincts
do the talking for us, we let it take over in the middle and not pre-plan
everything. If the wicket is good, we want to go out there and play the kind of
cricket we are playing and everything falls in place.”
And for India, everything did come together. Virat
Kohli scored his record-tying 49th ODI century after he and Gill were removed,
and his 134-run partnership with Shreyas Iyer made sure that India was always
above par even when the wicket became more difficult to bat on.
“If we look at how we played in the last three
games, we played better [against South Africa] in terms of adapting to the
situation,” Rohit said. “We were put under little bit of pressure
against England where we lost three wickets upfront and then we got ourselves
collected and got a decent score and the seamers did the job for us. In the
last game as well, we lost a wicket in the first over, but we stitched a very
big partnership there and then again got to a good score, and again, seamers
came to the party.
“Again today as well, it was not an easy pitch,
you needed someone like Kohli to go out there and bat the situation. Not to
forget [Shreyas] Iyer, creating that partnership for us and getting the runs on
the board and then we knew we had the runs on the board and it was time to keep
the ball in the right areas, and the pitch will do its thing.”