Bengaluru (Karnataka): The young Indian team registered a victory against Australia by six runs in the fifth T20I on Sunday. Left-arm Arshdeep Singh said that he thought he had conceded too many runs in the first three overs of his spell and admitted that he thought of being the culprit of the game came, before conceding only three runs in the final over of the game played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here.
The pitch at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium wasn’t easy for stroke play as India made 160/8. In reply, Australia began strongly, before being reduced to 144/7 in 18 overs.
India skipper Surya Kumar Yadav handed the last over to Arshdeep and the left-arm bowler from Punjab grabbed the opportunity with both hands, defending 10 runs in the final over to give India a six-run win, nailing a bouncer and yorkers that he looked so incapable of bowling during that horror start.
"I guess for the big part of the game, for almost the first 19 overs, I was thinking that I gave away too many runs and would be the culprit of the game. But god gave me another chance and I believed in myself. Thanks to god that I defended it and thanks to the staff as well who believed in me," Arshdeep said after the match.
"To be honest, nothing was going through my mind. Surya (Suryakumar Yadav) bhai told me that whatever happens, happens. The credit goes to our batters as well. They gave us a really good total here on a tricky wicket and we had a cushion of an extra 15 to 20 runs," added the left-arm pacer.
Adding to the praise of Surya, Arshadeep said, "Surya (Suryakumar Yadav) told me to bowl whatever I want to in the death overs and his full support will be there. Sometimes, he gives a bit of input, you know, this kind of ball will be good at this stage."
Arshdeep also pointed out that despite the win, the Indian fast-bowling unit wasn’t at their best and will try to put up a better show in the coming games. "According to the standards we have set as a bowling unit in the Indian team, it was not even near par. But a lot of lessons learnt and, in the future, I will make sure to rectify those mistakes and come back stronger," he quipped.
Right-handed batter Shreyas Iyer, whose 37-ball 53 took India to a winning total, was also in praise of Arshdeep's final over and believed the pitch was a challenging one to bat on.
"I'm elated to see everyone chipping in and contributing to the team. The shots, innovation.... and I could see Arshdeep's calmness when he was bowling the last over," he said.
"To be honest, my mindset was to go boom-boom from ball one. But when I saw three wickets falling down (and) my mind started calculating what would be the best total on this wicket. Then I had a few batsmen (batters) contributing as well. It wasn't an easy wicket to bat on, but if you have a total in mind, you try to play accordingly and today was the right example of how we did it as a team," said Iyer.
"I feel 160 was the right total, which we got eventually. After losing consecutive wickets in the powerplay to get to 160, it was a commendable effort, and to defend it at the same time, brilliant performance by the team," he concluded.
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