'There’s no way we take this team lightly'
Bangladesh overcame a disastrous period in the country’s cricket to clinch a first-ever T20 win against India at Delhi yesterday. India skipper Rohit Sharma was poignant when answering a question about the record between the two sides leading up to the match and reasserted that in no way was his team being overconfident against the Tigers.
Bangladesh had lost all eight T20I games against India leading up to the Delhi T20I and they were able to overcome their troubling disappointments over the course of the last few weeks.
“Those eight games, right?”
That was how Sharma began before delving into their mindset regarding their opponents. “You are talking about when we started playing T20s. I don’t know when was the time we started playing against them first but it was a different team then and a different team now. Lots of new guys are here and there is no way we take this team lightly.”
Bangladesh achieved the seemingly impossible after losing so many close matches to India in the past. The India captain reiterated that the team had put on what was a defendable score on the board.
“We lost a wicket in the first over and it’s not easy after that. The pitch was slightly soft and shot-making was not easy. We needed around 140-150 and that was the message. We have seen on pitches like this before that the winning score becomes somewhere around 140-150. Even today, we saw that 148 was a good score. We would have defended it if we were smart on the field. We didn’t take a couple of decisions right and that cost us. Their batsman got a 50 towards the end and that is where we probably lacked in terms of decision making.”
