T20 World Cup: Wants to give Shami a challenge: Rohit to hold him back till final over | Cricket News

BRISBANE: Bowling Mohammed Shami just in the last over of India’s warm-up match against Australia was highly surprising. Justifying the move, captain Rohit Sharma said the plan was to throw a “challenge” at the man returning from a long layoff.
Rising to the challenge, Shami put fitness concerns to rest with a sensational 20th-over knock as India cruised to a six-run win in their first warm-up match of the T20 World Cup Monday here.
Shami, who was included in the squad as a replacement for the injured Jasprit Bumrah, landed yorker after yorker and finished with three wickets in the over.

“Honestly, he is coming back after a long time. So we just wanted to give him an earful. That was always the plan from the beginning,” Rohit said on Star Sports.
“He comes to bowl at the death. We know how lethal he can be with the new ball. We just wanted to give him a bit of a challenge, to come and bowl that death and we saw what that was,” said the Indian captain said of the man who played a competitive game last July and landed here after having a long bout of Covid-19.
Needing 11 to win from six balls, the Australians were on course but Shami, returning from a long injury lay-off, had other ideas as the home side lost four wickets in the last over, including a run out.

KL Rahul (57 off 33) and Suryakumar Yadav (50 off 33) smashed entertaining half-centuries to power India to 186 for seven after Australia opted to bowl at the Gabba.
However, concerns about India’s bowling remain ahead of their tournament opener against arch-rivals Pakistan on October 23. Rohit is looking for more consistency in bowling.
“There’s definitely room for improvement. I’m sure we’re on it, but I’d like to see more consistency in terms of where you want to throw the ball. You know, when you’re playing at home and when you’re playing in Australian conditions, you have to tactics change, your lengths change a bit.
“Sometimes it would be a good option to keep it simple and hit the ball hard on the deck. That’s something we’ve been working on talking to the guys about. But overall it was a good game for us. Like I said, it was a good pitch.

“They had a decent partnership in the middle, which put a bit of pressure on us. But our last three-four overs were really good.”
The Indian batsmen enjoyed the pace and bounce of the wicket, especially Rahul who scored the bulk of the runs in the showdown, taking his side to 69 for no loss. Later, the in-form Suryakumar also played a good knock to prop up India.
“I thought we batted well. Just towards the end we could have added another 10-15 runs,” Rohit said.
“That’s something we talked about. We want the set batsman to bat as long as possible and till the end, which Surya did to some extent.
“Yeah, overall it was a great batting effort. It was a good pitch to play on, good bounce, we could trust our shots and that’s exactly what some of the guys did.”
Playing on the big Australian ground with big boundaries was a new experience for some of the Indians. The increased boundaries also made an impact on the experienced campaign with Virat Kohli (19 off 13), Dinesh Karthik (20 off 14), Rohit and Rahul caught in the deep.
“You have to be smart when you plan your batting on such grounds. Hitting boundaries and sixes obviously sounds nice, but you can’t forget to push the ball in the gap, run really hard between the wickets and try to eight-nine runs in an over,” said Rohit.
“(It’s) also a pretty safe plan to have and that’s something we talked about.
“When we played in Perth as well (against WA XI), the practice game, one side of the boundary would be huge and it was a great practice for us today.”