Under the leadership of Rohit Sharma, the Indian National Cricket Team played the Semi-Final 2 of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 against the England National Cricket Team led by Jos Buttler at the Providence Stadium, Georgetown, Guyana on Thursday, June 27.
This was the second consecutive time that these two teams met in the semi-final of a T20 World Cup, as in the previous edition, India and England faced off in the high-octane knockout clash.
It was on November 10 at the Adelaide Oval when Rohit Sharma’s men were invited to bat first in the second semi-final of the ICC Men’s T20 World 2022. The Indian team’s batting performance turned out to be terrible as KL Rahul scored. a run-a-ball 5 and captain Rohit Sharma played a disappointing knock of 27 runs in 28 balls.
Once again, the onus of rescuing his team fell on the in-form Virat Kohli, who to some extent did so by smashing a half-century. However, he needed 39 balls to reach the milestone and the team’s scoring pace became very slow.
Suryakumar Yadav (14 off 10) and Rishabh Pant (6 off 4) were also frenetic with the bat, but Hardik Pandya had a spectacular display. The all-rounder scored 63 runs in 33 balls with 4 fours and 5 sixes to ensure that his team posted a respectable total on the board: -168/6.
India had a good enough score to fight with the ball, but Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Axar Patel, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin and Hardik Pandya did not know the assault they were going to face in the next 16 overs.
Alex Hales and Jos Buttler brought out their monster abilities and scored 63 runs in six overs. There were still plenty of runs to be scored but Jos Buttler and Alex Hales turned supernovas and the score after 16 overs was 170/0 with England winning dominantly by 10 wickets. Alex Hales scored 86 runs and Buttler 80 as England secured a place in the summit clash and also won the competition.
Coming back to the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 clash between India and England, the Men in Blue got what they wanted as they were invited to bat first. Virat Kohli (9) and Rishabh Pant (4) flopped, but Rohit Sharma (57) and Suryakumar Yadav (47) played fantastic knocks, while Hardik Pandya (23), Ravindra Jadeja (17) and Axar Patel (10) made decent contributions to help India post 171/7.
With that ball, India were simply outstanding as Axar Patel (3), Kuldeep Yadav (3) and Jasprit Bumrah (2) combined to destroy England’s batting unit. The team’s brilliant bowling performance saw England bowled out for 103 and India win by 68 runs to book a spot in the showpiece clash of the ICC T20 World Cup 2024.
It is very satisfying to win this game – Rohit Sharma
After the match, India captain Rohit Sharma expressed his satisfaction with the victory and said that they had worked very hard. Rohit Sharma said:
“It’s very satisfying to win this game. We worked very hard as a unit. To win this game like this was a great effort from everyone. We adapted very well to the conditions. It was a challenge and we adapted. We played the conditions really well.” Well, if the players play according to the conditions, things go well.
Rohit Sharma added that they felt a score of around 150 was good for the match, but with the help of his partnership with Suryakumar Yadav, they scored over 20 more runs. He stated:
“At one stage, (we were thinking) 140-150, as the game went on, after that partnership, we said another 25 runs. I can set the target in my mind, but I don’t want anyone to know about it. “For batsmen, they are all instinctive players. I thought 170 was a very good score on this surface.”
Rohit Sharma further labelled Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav as gun makers and praised them. He also spoke about Virat Kohli’s poor run of form and said that they are not worried about the big batsman as he is still classy and a quality player. He was also hopeful that Kohli would fire in the final. Rohit Sharma explained:
“They (Axar and Kuldeep) are very powerful bowlers. It is difficult to play some shots, the pressure is also on them, but they were calm and knew what to bowl. He (Kohli) is a quality player. Any player can go through that. We understand its class and its importance. The intention is there. The form is never a problem when you have played for 15 years. We have probably been very calm as a team. “It helps you make good decisions. That will help us get through the match. You have to play good cricket. That’s what we want to do in the final.”
