Former ODI World Cup-winning captain, Ricky Ponting, praised Rohit Sharma for his exemplary captaincy during India‘s high-octane clash against Pakistan at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York on June 9. Ponting interacted with Rohit after the match and hailed him for his outstanding leadership in a low-scoring thriller, where India registered a memorable 6-run win against Pakistan.
In a video released by the ICC on their social media platforms, Ponting highlighted Rohit’s experience of captaining bowlers like Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya in the IPL for Mumbai Indians (MI), which proved beneficial in the tense encounter.
“Rohit Sharma is a very experienced captain, isn’t he? And I just saw him then and said, mate, your captaincy today was outstanding. I don’t think he could have done much more. You think about a lot of the bowlers that he’s got in his team. He’s actually had those bowlers in the IPL as well, not only for India. So he understands them, knows when he can use them, but it’s one thing for the captain to set a plan, the bowlers are going to go ahead and execute it and Hardik was outstanding,” Ponting said in the video.
During Pakistan’s chase of 120 runs, Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah consistently took crucial wickets leading up to the death overs. Pakistan, poised to chase down the target, were reduced from 80 for 3 at the start of the 15th over to 113 for 7 by the end of the 20th over.
Ponting also commended Hardik for his all-round brilliance and Axar Patel for his economical bowling.
“I thought Hardik did a really good job with the ball as well, and then you break it down and this has been a wicket that the seamers have liked, but their spinner bowled four overs for 20 as well and Patel picked up a big wicket. Yeah, the wicket was definitely different in the second innings. I mean, you can see Pakistan got the ball to hold up through natural variation, and you know, it was just a little bit tacky, but when the sun came out, the wicket dried out quite quickly and then you have to, you have to adapt and adjust on the run. I thought he did that really well,” Ponting added.
India’s victory marked their successful defense of their lowest-ever T20I total, continuing their dominance over Pakistan with 7 wins out of the last 8 meetings in T20 World Cups.
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