 "Skipper Rohit Sharma credits batters for showing intent in 1st T20I")
India skipper Rohit Sharma lavished praise on the batters for showing 'intent' after their contribution helped Team India defeat England in the first T20I.
An all-round performance from Hardik Pandya provided Team India with a 50-run victory over England in the first T20I of the three-match series, here at Southampton on Thursday.
"Great performance from ball one. All batters showed intent. Although the pitch was good, we played good shots and never got ahead of the game. You got to make use of those six overs in the powerplay," said Rohit in a post-match presentation.
"There is a certain approach we want to take in the powerplay. You got to back yourself in this game, sometimes it comes off, sometimes it doesn't. The whole batting unit needs to understand the direction the team is taking and the guys were spot on today," he added.
Hardik smashed 51 runs off 33 balls which took India's total to 198/8 in the first innings. Later, he went on to scalp four wickets and restricted England at 148.
"I was impressed with his (Hardik) bowling. He wants to do that a lot more in the future, bowled quick and used his variations too. Of course, his batting is there for us to see. That's the reason we wanted to bat (ball swinging under lights)," said Rohit.
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"Sometimes it does swing in the evenings and we wanted to utilize that. Both the new ball bowlers used the swing and stopped their batters. We were sloppy on the field. Those catches should have been taken. Pretty sure we will field pretty well in the coming games," he added.
Apart from Hardik, debutant Arshdeep Singh and spinner Yuzvendra Chahal scalped two wickets each.
Suryakumar Yadav and Deepak Hooda scored 39 and 33 runs, respectively, which helped Team India score 198 runs in the first innings. For England, Moeen Ali and Chris Jordan scalped two wickets each, while Topley, Tymal Mills, and Parkinson took one wicket each.
Both the teams will be squaring off for the second T20I on Saturday at Birmingham.
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