Rohit Sharma believes Washington Sundar's "magical spell" changed the game

Sundar came into the limelight when he joined the Rising Pune Supergiant team in the previous season of the Indian Premier League in the absence of Ravichandran Ashwin. He not only impressed the selectors during his trials but also played a crucial role during the IPL claiming eight wickets at an economy of just 6.16. Now, he has reached a level higher and offered the same effort for team India which impressed the stand-in captain Rohit. At the age of 18, he became one of the emerging players for India and the way he performs at the international level has impressed the Indian skipper. Sundar bowled four overs and bagged three wickets in the form of Tamim Iqbal, Liton Das, and Soumya Sarkar and conceded 22 runs with the economy of 5.50. Apart from Sundar, in this game, the bowlers tried to perform well and despite the blistering knock of Mushfiqur Rahim, they successfully defended a score of 176. Throughout the tournament, Rohit and Raina failed to deliver with the bat but in this game, the duo were the main pillars who built a partnership of 102 runs.

“It was important for me to step up. Like I said at the toss I tried to take my time with the bat at the start and then play my shots later on. I felt we were 10-15 runs short with the bat at the end, but they bowled brilliantly at the death. Washington started brilliantly with the ball and his magical spell changed the game for us. The entire bowling unit too stuck to their plans and pulled it off for us. The wicket wasn't the usual wicket we've been playing on for the last week. It was gripping and was slow and hence difficult to play on the up and that is why I wanted to take my time. One set batsman had to bat and I knew a new batsman would find it tough, Rohit said as quoted by Cricketnext.

“The partnership between Raina and me was key; he has been timing the ball brilliantly and that is great to see. Hope he can do it for us in the finals as well. [Praising Sundar] He is never afraid of flighting the ball, sets his own field and it says a lot about an individual. It allows me also to breathe easy and set the field accordingly. In the series we played against Sri Lanka in India, we saw that from him and today was no different.”

After the end of the 19th over, Bangladesh needed 28 runs in the last six deliveries to win the match. It was not an easy task for the team but they had some hope with Rahim at the crease hvaing scored 63 off 50 balls. At that moment, the stand-in skipper handed the ball to Mohammed Siraj who made sure India register a 17-run win in their last league game.

“I just told Siraj to keep it simple (in the last over) and we knew that that was the way to contain them. They needed 28 runs and we knew that would happen only if they hit big. I asked him to bowl that back of a length ball because we found it tough to hit. From whatever I have seen of him he can do very well. He is a great talent, has all the capabilities of doing what a fast bowler has to do. He's coming back off a break and that's never easy. It wasn't a good game for him, but he has a lot of talent to come back hard.”