Adelaide: In England’s excellent bowling performance during their ten-wicket win over India in second semifinal of Men’s T20 World Cup, leg-spinner Adil Rashid bowled an outstanding spell of 1/20 in four overs, where no Indian batter had an answer to the questions posed by him.
Rashid was introduced into the attack from the final over of the powerplay, and ended his quota of overs in the 12th over, having strangled India’s run-scoring through the middle overs and took out a dangerous Suryakumar Yadav with a slower leg-break outside the off-stump, which delighted captain Jos Buttler.
“Such a good team performance. I thought the bowlers were outstanding. Adil Rashid, I thought had his best day for a while. He was so tough to play. I thought he looked like getting a wicket every over. I thought he was outstanding. He’s been brilliant for a long, long period of time. I’ve worked with him a lot.”
“I have a great seat to watch him go about his business. He bowls with so much variation, and he’s got as much variety as anyone really. I think he’s been bowling really well actually. I think he may not have picked up the wickets that he usually does, and certainly from the outside some people said he wasn’t bowling as well, but certainly from within the group, you come and face him in the nets, he’s been bowling well,” said Buttler in the post-match press conference.
Buttler should also be given the credit of using Rashid’s overs very well, as the side managed to avoid a match-up with the left-handed Rishabh Pant, who was selected ahead of Dinesh Karthik in the playing eleven as a middle-overs spin-hitter. “Tonight he was exceptional. I think wicketkeeper, bowler, we have a good relationship. Obviously he’s very close to Moeen, and they work together a lot on their spin bowling.”
“I’ve thought the way they’ve worked and the way they’ve communicated about what’s working on the wicket and what looks good — obviously Moeen stood at slip a bit as well tonight, so that communication was perfect. He bowled the right style today.”
Buttler also praised pace all-rounder Chris Jordan, who got his first game in ongoing tournament as tearaway quick Mark Wood was injured. Although Jordan conceded 43 runs in his four overs, he picked up key wickets of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Hardik Pandya and bowled three straight overs in the death.
“Special mention I would say as well to Chris Jordan, to come into such a high-pressure game not having played so far in the tournament, and I asked a huge amount of him there to bowl three overs straight through at the death against such a great hitter of the ball like Hardik Pandya. That’s a hell of a performance from Chris Jordan.”
Buttler credited his bowlers for keeping India to 168/6, despite Kohli and Pandya getting fifties as well as hitting 68 runs in last five overs. “I think give credit to our bowlers. I thought the bowlers bowled exceptionally well. To take a wicket in the second over adds pressure on to the opposition.”
In defeating India in the semi-final, Buttler stayed true to his pre-match words of not making an India-Pakistan final a reality. “Certainly there were a few people wanting that final, of course. But certainly for us, we’re desperate to get there. We wanted to, like I said, spoil that party, and having seen the first game of the tournament between India and Pakistan, there’s a lot of people that would have loved to have seen another edition of that, but they’ll have to wait for another time.”
He signed off by saying that the reasoning behind chasing at Adelaide Oval was being unsure of getting a good score batting first. “There’s one reason we wanted to chase today, as well, because we weren’t sure exactly sort of what would be a good score and sort of being under pressure to post a score or know exactly how hard to go, when to do that.”
“That was one of the benefits I thought of chasing today. But no, I thought we bowled really well, and that put them under pressure and we didn’t give them opportunities to score.”
(IANS)
