Flower impressed by Rohit captaincy at the T20 WC Final

FORMER Zimbabwe international captain and current Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) head coach in the Indian Premier League (IPL) Andy Flower has heaped praises on India’s T20 World Cup winning skipper Rohit Sharma.

Flower was impressed with the way Sharma used his bowlers in the last five overs as India scripted a brilliant comeback to complete an invincible campaign and claim the top accolade in what turned out to be the skipper’s last T20I match for his country.

India found themselves at the back foot with five overs to go in their defense of 176 runs with one of the finest hitters in the modern game, Heinrich Klaasen on the rampage with the bat for the Proteas.

Klaasen and David Miller had scored an impressive 38 runs off the two previous overs, leaving their team needing just 30 runs off as many balls with six wickets in hand to win their maiden ICC World Cup tournament title.

It was at that time that Sharma turned to one of the best fast bowlers in the world, Jasprit Bumrah and he, once again, delivered when it mattered the most. With Bumrah slowing down South Africa’s strike rate at that time as the two batters dared take him on, conceding just four runs in that over, it was Hardik Pandya who broke the Klaasen-Miller partnership.

The gutsy captaincy by Sharma to bring back Bumrah instead of saving him for the later stages was what impressed the Chevrons great – who has been described as one of the best cricket minds at the moment.

Flower was speaking during ESPNCricinfo’s ‘TimeOut’ talk show and believes credit should also go to Pandya.
“I think he (Sharma) kept his nerve, I think he was saving up his premier bowler for two of the last five and the proof of the pudding was in the eating this time. Bumrah came to the party just as his captain needed him to.

“Klaasen was genuinely outstanding, the class and pedigree of his shots, he really deserved to take them home but Hardik got him, and you have to give a lot of credit to Hardik as well for bowling that slower ball, it bounced just a little to find that outside edge,” said Flower.

After Bumrah bowled the 16th over, Pandya got the 17th before the former came back for the 18th, his last over of the match. In that over, he managed to pick up the wicket of the Proteas’ Marco Jansen.

Arshdeep Singh was given the penultimate over by their skipper with South Africa needing 20 runs off the final two overs and the fast bowler only went for four runs, leaving 16 to get in the final over. It was Pandya who was given the honours of defending the 16 runs and he managed to get the scalp of Miller who attempted to clear the boundary but was caught.

It was one of the many times that Flower was impressed with Sharma’s calls. “And then Bumrah could come back with his last over, that 18th over, the captain gave him that crucial over and left two overs, one for Arshdeep and one for Hardik at the end.

After what he was hoping for, that rate climbed again, a very fascinating game of cat and mouse that Rohit was playing with the South African batting team,” said Flower.

It was India’s first world title since 2013 and the first time that a team completes an in a World Cup since Australia won the 50 over tournament in 2007.

Soon after the final, Virat Kohli, Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja announced their retirements from T20Is. —@brandon_malvin