Mumbai: Thanks to a stellar knock from Virat Kohli, India registered a win over Pakistan in the Champions Trophy clash on Sunday. The Indian team entered the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy on Sunday with a triumph. After the resounding success of the Indian team, Rohit Sharma's coach Dinesh Lad had an exclusive conversation with 'ETV Bharat'.
"India defeated arch-rivals Pakistan in the ICC Champions Trophy courtesy of Kohli's brilliant batting, Rohit Sharma's captaincy tactics and the support from the batters as well as bowlers. India were playing with a strategy. Pakistan were put under pressure by the Indian team and that is the reason they lost the match," Rohit Sharma's coach Dinesh Lad stated.
"We will be facing big teams in the next round and we will have to give our best against these teams to win. Indian team should keep playing the way they are playing," Dinesh Lad expressed his opinion in an exclusive conversation with ETV Bharat.
Pakistan captain Mohammad Rizwan and Saud Shakeel tried to recover their innings after the loss of two early wickets. However, their innings collapsed after Rizwan was dismissed. On the failure of the new batsmen in the middle order, Lad said, "They have inexperienced batters in the middle order. They failed to relieve the pressure. They made mistakes. It was also evident when the Indian team was batting. Because of the pressure they dropped two important catches."
Responding on a query about whether India had a gameplan against Pakistan's pace trio of Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf, Lad said, "There was definitely a strategy. These bowlers were not allowed to settle by the Indian batters."
"Rohit, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Virat and finally Hardik Pandya attacked these bowlers. Initially, Rohit and Gill batted with aggresion. Later, Virat, Shreyas and Pandya also followed the same path. This strategy turned out to be a game changer."
Dinesh Lad praised Rohit's tactics as captain and also Kohli's impressive knock.
"He captained well. He used the bowlers very well. He brought Hardik, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav to bowl at the right time and they got wickets every time. Even while batting, he plays without thinking about himself. He focuses on increasing the run rate by batting aggressively and not letting the bowlers settle down. The batters coming in later get time to settle down," said Dinesh Lad.
"Virat Kohli should be given full marks in today's match. He played an amazing innings. Most importantly, he always performs strongly against Pakistan. In the past too, he has often given India victories against Pakistan on the strength of his own performance. There is not much to praise him for."
