Cricket World Cup 2023: Rohit Sharma explains why he decided to bowl 4 part-time bowlers against Netherlands 

Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma ended the match with one wicket each in their win over Netherlands.

Cricket World Cup 2023: Rohit Sharma explains why he decided to bowl 4 part-time bowlers against Netherlands 

Rohit Sharma finally gave Virat Kohli an opportunity to showcase his bowling skills (Image via ESPN)

After scoring a massive 410 runs against Netherlands, it was an assured victory for the Indian Team in their final group stage match of the 2023 ICC ODI World Cup. In the second innings, defending such a huge target, Indian captain Rohit Sharma decided to utilize the team’s part-time bowling options. 

Players like Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma rolled their arms for the team. Kohli and Sharma ended up picking up wickets as well, getting the wickets of Scott Edwards and Teja Nidamananuru. Later in the post-match presentation, Rohit Sharma was asked about why he used his part-time options. Rohit confirmed that they used them to see all possible combinations and wanted to experiment. 

It is something always in our mind when you have five bowlers. You want to create options within the team and I think we have that option now. Today, we had nine options. It's important. This was the game where we could have tried certain things. The seamers going out there and bowling wide yorkers when it was not needed. But we wanted to do that, as a team, as a bowling unit we wanted to try and do something different and see what we can achieve.
Rohit Sharma in the post-match presentation

Later in the post-match press conference, Rahul Dravid confirmed that the team was set up in a way that there would be 6 bowling options. Due to Hardik Pandya’s injury the team had to change their strategies but it hasn’t affected the team at all. He was also happy with Kohli and Rohit picking up wickets.

India finish group stage on a high, next challenge will be against the Kiwis 

After India’s win over Netherlands, they topped the group stage unbeaten. The Rohit Sharma and Co. showcased their dominance in all 9 matches with great performances from all three departments. The Indian bowling attack bowled out their opponents 7 out of 9 times and had two batters scoring more than 500 runs as well. 

New Zealand India
New Zealand face India on the 15th of November in the Wankhede Stadium (Image via ESPN)

India will now travel to Mumbai to face New Zealand in the first semi-finals, which will be played on 15th November. Finishing 4th, New Zealand had to compete with Pakistan and Afghanistan for a spot in the semi-final. They lost 4 matches in the trot after winning their first 4 games, but after beating Sri Lanka they booked their tickets to Mumbai. This is also a rematch of the 2019 World Cup Semi-finals where New Zealand won by 18 runs. 

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