NEW DELHI: India’s head coach, Gautam Gambhir, praised his team for using “high-risk, high-reward cricket” to win the series against England 4-1 while laying out the plan to routinely score 250-plus runs in Twenty20 Internationals.
The previous three Twenty20 Internationals between India and England demonstrated the country’s philosophy of playing aggressive cricket regardless of the circumstances.
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England pacer Saqib Mahmood destroyed India in Pune by taking three wickets and adding a maiden in the second over.
India’s batsmen maintained the pressure and assaulted the English bowlers to finish their innings with a valiant score of 181/9, which was too much for the tourists to handle.
Despite wickets falling from the other end on Sunday in Mumbai, Abhishek Sharma went all guns blazing, leading the hosts to a record-breaking 247/9, which is India’s fourth-highest total in the format.
“That’s the kind of T20 cricket we want to play. We don’t want to fear losing a game of cricket. We want to play high-risk, high-reward cricket and these guys have adopted that ideology, that policy really well. And I think the ideology of this T20 team is based on selflessness and fearlessness. And I think in the last six months, these guys have done it day in, day out,” Gambhir told the host broadcaster.
“We want to try and get to 250-260 regularly. And in trying to do that, there’ll be games where we’ll get bundled out for 120-130. And that is what T20 cricket is all about. And unless and until you don’t play that high-risk cricket, you won’t get those big rewards as well. Most importantly, I think we’re on the right track. Come those big tournaments, we want to still continue playing this way, and we don’t want to fear losing anything,” he added.
The failure of England to understand Varun Chakravarthy‘s spin was a major factor in India’s victory. The English batsmen were still baffled by the Indian mystery spinner.
With a staggering 14 wickets at an average of 9.85 and an economy rate of 7.66, he concluded the series at the top of the wicket-taking rankings.
“I think his transformation from IPL to international T20 cricket has been phenomenal. And this series was probably the benchmark as well because England is a high-quality side. They’ve got some really quality cricketers and the kind of surfaces we’ve played on – I think they were fantastic batting wickets, and the way he’s bowled those tough overs has been phenomenal,” Gambhir said of Varun.