Credit: Twitter
Indian skipper Rohit Sharma revealed that the team was set to change the batting order in their clash against Bangladesh in ODI World Cup 2023 on October 19. The Men in Blue thumped Bangla Tigers at the MCA Stadium in Pune, Maharashtra, by a margin of seven wickets to extend their win tally to 4-0 in the ICC tournament. After the game, Sharma spoke to Shubman Gill and said that Shardul Thakur was set to get a batting order promotion while lauding him as ‘bade match ka player (big match player)’.
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In a video posted by BCCI.TV, Sharma said that Shardul was set to play ahead of KL Rahul in the match. However, he added that just when the decision was made, Shreyas Iyer got dismissed which didn’t give the 32-year-old enough time to get ready to walk out to bat. In the video, Gill could be heard telling the captain, “Fans were disappointed, they wanted to see Shardul batting.”
Watch the video here:
Rahul said, “He got out on that ball only. I told Thakur on that ball only, you will go to bat.” Speaking on Thakur’s batting, he said, “Aayega, bade match ka player hai.” (He will come, he is a big-match player.)
Coming back to the match, on winning the toss, Bangladesh skipper chose to bat first. The collective efforts of the Indian bowling and fielding unit, including the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj helped them in the first innings as the rivals managed to post a decent score of 256-8 in 50 overs.
In the second innings, Shubman Gill’s 53-run knock, along with Virat Kohli’s last ball century helped India win their fourth match of the contest.