After his team’s hard-fought win over South Africa, Indian captain KL Rahul admitted that it was fun to see stalwarts like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli play cricket with so much freedom and he also praised the performance of fast bowler Harshit Rana with the new ball, calling him special and full of potential. The ‘Ro-Ko’ celebrations continued from where they left off in Sydney and enthralled the Ranchi crowd with Virat scoring his 52nd ODI century and Rohit breaking the record for most ODI sixes.
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Despite Harshit Rana’s quick spells with the new ball, the Proteas managed to bounce back from a paltry score of 11/3 thanks to half-centuries from Matthew Bretzke, Marco Jensen and Corbin Bosch, but Kuldeep Yadav’s fours left them 17 runs short of victory. Speaking after the match, KL admitted that there was some nervousness in his stomach during such a tense defense of 350. He said that I would be lying if I said there was no nervousness at all (any nervousness while being chased by South Africa?). Playing ODI cricket after some time and captaining the country again – is an expectation from myself. There was a calm atmosphere throughout, but they kept us under pressure and kept working hard – it was exciting.
Speaking about Rohit and Virat, he said, “It’s always fun to see them (Kohli and Rohit) playing like that, playing with that freedom, that’s what they’ve done throughout their careers. I’ve been watching that for a long time. For me, it’s fun to have them in the dressing room.” About Harshit, Rahul said that the team was looking for him because of his height and run-scoring ability, and he is still developing.
He said that Harshit has really performed very well. As soon as I walked into the dressing room I knew he was special. He is the player the team was looking for. He’s still developing, but has a lot of potential. KL described his new role as a number six batsman as good for his “personal development”. He concluded that keep thinking about the game and keep trying to get better.
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In this match, South Africa invited India to bat first. Yashasvi Jaiswal was out after a brilliant start after scoring 18 runs in 16 balls, while Rohit (57 runs in 51 balls, with the help of five fours and three sixes) and Virat enthralled the Ranchi crowd with a 136-run partnership for the second wicket. India’s rhythm deteriorated in the middle order, Rohit, Ruturaj Gaikwad (8) and Washington Sundar (13) were out in quick succession and India’s score read 200/4.