'No Intention..,' Rohit Sharma Explains His Magical Shot vs Nepal

image-lm582ehyRohit Sharma vs Nepal (Source: AP Newsroom)

The stylish Indian opener and skipper Rohit Sharma played an outstanding knock against the newcomers Nepal to help his side seal a spot in the Super 4 stage of the Asia Cup 2023. Rohit smashed whopping five sixes, scoring 74 not out in the chase of 147 as the match turned out to be a rain-curtailed encounter, however, India achieved the target without losing any of their batters.

Shubman Gill played a fine hand, too, with 67* and ensured that the Men in Blue eased the total inside 21 overs. Earlier, the Nepal side were bowled out for 230 in their maiden attempt to challenge the dominant Indian side, with wicket-keeper Aasif Sheikh playing a firm 58-run knock for the former.

Nevertheless, Sharma, who was also awarded the Player of the Match award, spoke in length about his knock in this game, mentioning that he was a bit nervous but eventually managed to settle in after spending some time on the crease.

"Yeah, I mean, not really, honestly, to start with. There were some nerves around to start with, but once I got my eye in, I wanted to cash in and, get the team home,"

Further, the 36-year-old, when asked about his extraordinary shot, which he played against Dipendra Singh in the 12th over, explained that he had no real intention of hitting the ball towards that area as he was just targeting the short fine leg boundary but bats are so strong that the ball went over the deep backward square leg region.

"That was unexpected. I just wanted to chip it over the short fine leg. There was no intention to hit all the way to deep backward square leg but luckily timed the ball really well, bats these days are so good,"


Moreover, contrary to speculations, the skipper dismissed all rumours about the side not being ready for the World Cup 2023. Sharma iterated that they were clear about their 15-man squad from the start, and the only doubts were regarding one or two spots in the side.

"Look, when we came here, in the back of our mind, we knew what our 15 is going to be like. There was one or two spots that we wanted to have a look at, but we were very clear in our mind that the Asia Cup is not going to give us the complete picture of what the squad would be like, because there were only two games that we had to play. So you can't really look too much into that two game and one being washed out. But luckily we got a bat in the first game, and we bowled in this game."

After this victory, India will next face Pakistan on 10th September in the Super 4 Stage of the Asia Cup.