Fast bowler Josh Hazlewood admitted that Australia paid the price for going off their game while bowling to Rohit Sharma in the T20 World Cup 2024 Super 8 clash on Monday, June 24. At the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium in Gros Islet, St Lucia, India defeated the Aussies by 24 runs on the back of Rohit’s whirlwind knock of 92 runs off 41 balls, laced with 7 fours and 8 sixes.
Rohit got to his half-century off 19 balls as India racked up 60 runs in the powerplay. From there on, the Indian skipper carried on as the Men in Blue put up a big score of 205 for 5 on the board. When Mitchell Starc castled Rohit, India were cruising along at 127 for 3 in 11.2 overs. Hazlewood said that Rohit played the big shots by using the wind at the venue to good effect.
IND v AUS, Super 8: Highlights
“Yeah, I’ve seen Rohit do that a few times now. Yeah, he’s a world-class player, so if you’re a bit off your game that can happen. It just looked like he obviously targeted that short, sorry the boundary with the wind there for a while and then we probably reacted, and then he hit a few the other side as well so he’s a class act and you expect him to do that a couple of times through a tournament,” Hazlewood said in the post-match press conference.
Kuldeep, Bumrah made the different
Hazlewood also reckoned that the 8 overs from Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav made the difference in the match. The duo finished with combined figures of 8-0-53-3 as India restricted their opponents to 181 for 7.
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Yeah, I thought the wicket was – a pretty good wicket it was probably a 190-par score and yeah, they got the other side of it and we went underneath so I thought the chase was well on target for quite a lot of the time there and probably till Kuldeep and Jasprit, their eight overs, probably proved the difference again as they usually do,” Hazlewood added.
Australia’s fate is now dependent on the match between Bangladesh and Afghanistan in St Vincent. They are currently placed second in the table with 2 points and a net run rate of -0.331.