ICC World Cup: India beat England by 100 runs
In ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, India is on the verge of victory as England is struggling to reach the target with two wickets in hand at Ekana Stadium in Lucknow this evening.
Chasing a victory target of 230 runs, England were all out at 129 runs in 34.5 overs.
Batting first, India were 229 runs for nine in the stipulated 50 overs. After a disastrous start, Captain Rohit Sharma consolidated the Indian innings with a gritty knock of 87 runs. For England David Willey took three wickets. Earlier England won the toss and opted to field.
Rohit Sharma: This was the game, a lot of character in the squad. All our experienced players stood up at the right time and got the game for us. Looking at how the tournament has gone for us, we had to come and bat here. We were challenged upfront, they bowled pretty well upfront. To get to a total on a pitch that had something in it, we just wanted to get to a total we could play with. We were not great with the bat. Losing three wickets isn’t the ideal situation.
Couple of guys threw it, including myself. When you look at the overall picture, we were 30 runs short. It’s not something you see everyday. When you start your innings, you have to try and get a couple of wickets to put the pressure back on the opposition. You can always rely on our seamers to come good and get those crucial breakthroughs. They exploited the conditions. They put the ball in the right areas. We have a good balance (in the bowling), there’s a bit of options and with experience as well. It’s very important that the batters put runs on the board.
Jos Buttler: Very disappointed. At the halfway stage, chasing 230 and seeing how wet it got, we fancied ourselves, same old story. I wasn’t sure if dew would come or not. Just the gut feel said that we wanted to chase. That’s as good we’ve been with the ball throughout the tournament. We created good pressure,, took wickets, if you said we are chasing 230, we would have been happy with that. Personally, I wanted to try and soak some pressure up, come through that phase and then build a partnership and sot of kill the momentum that India had.
It’s about committing and executing your skill. Chasing 230, there wasn’t scoreboard pressure. It’s about trying to come through that phase. We are just falling short whichever way we are doing it at the minute. Our answers on a postcard, I think. Some top players and we are a long way short of our best. Excellent start in the powerplay, the guys found some movement, there was a bit of indifferent bounce as well, the ground fielding was good. It felt like today was the day where it was all turning around, but the way we batted, didn’t back that up. (On Champions Trophy 2025 qualification) We are aware of that, we’ve still got lots to play for.
