London: A terrific spell of bowling from Reece Topley (6-24) that followed Moeen Ali’s crucial knock helped England to a 100-run win over India and level the series 1-1 in the second ODI at Lord’s.
Post the game, Team India skipper Rohit Sharma emphasised the importance of staying positive and trying different things.
“I want guys to change their mindset a little bit and try to be more positive and take the game on. I know the target is small, you are chasing 240, but obviously, is there another way you can take when you are chasing a target like that? Is there something that you can do as a batting unit, and I think you can.
“And, more often than not, unless you try and see what is in store, you will never know what to expect. It has happened on a few occasions when we were 30 odd for three, and that is where I want these guys to try and find out if they can try something different about their own game. I think if they can get the team out of that situation, imagine the confidence they are going to get from that. It is something that we have spoken about, but it depends on each individual at that moment as well,” said Rohit in the post-match press conference.
“This is where the role of the management comes in, where they should ask the players to go and play freely, and show them that what they are trying to do in the middle is right,” he added.
The skipper further spoke about consistency and learning and improving from the team’s mistakes.
“To be honest, in the last couple of years we have hardly played any ODIs. It is hard to judge from eight or nine ODIs we have played in after the pandemic after the 2019 World Cup. The game is evolving, batsmanship is evolving, and we need to evolve as well. We want to take the team in a certain direction, and while doing that you will get to learn a lot as to where you got stuck up. Unless you try, you will never find more about yourself. We want to encourage that kind of thought.
“The last T20, we lost by 20 runs but even after losing wickets, we made around 198 runs. We showed some depth (in batting) there but we need to show our depth in batting consistently. If we bat consistently, the team has confidence and the middle-order batters can play freely. We need to keep this in mind and we are working hard towards it. We haven’t gotten any results yet but we hope we will improve in the future matches,” he concluded.
