Ind vs Aus, 5th T20I – Arshdeep Singh – ‘I was thinking I would be the culprit of the game’

“I guess for the big part of the game, for almost the first 19 overs, I was thinking that I gave away too many runs and would be the culprit of the game,” Arshdeep said on the official broadcast. “But god gave me another chance and I believed in myself. Thanks to god that I defended it and thanks to the staff as well who believed in me.”

When asked what his thought process was for the final over, he said: “To be honest, nothing was going through my mind. Surya [Suryakumar Yadav] bhai told me that whatever happens, happens. The credit goes to our batsmen as well. They gave us a really good total here on a tricky wicket and we had a cushion of an extra 15 to 20 runs.”

In the first innings, legspinner Tanveer Sangha registered figures of 1 for 26. When it was India’s turn, Axar Patel was the pick of the bowlers, conceding just 14 from his four overs while picking up the wicket of Tim David. Ravi Bishnoi, too, chipped in with 2 for 29.

“I feel 160 was the right total, which we got eventually. After losing consecutive wickets in the powerplay to get to 160, it was a commendable effort, and to defend it at the same time, brilliant performance by the team”

Shreyas Iyer

“To be honest, my mindset was to go boom-boom from ball one,” Iyer said. “But when I saw three wickets falling down, my mind started calculating what would be the best total on this wicket. Then I had a few batsmen contributing as well. It wasn’t an easy wicket to bat on, but if you have a total in mind, you try to play accordingly and today was the right example of how we did it as a team.

“I feel 160 was the right total, which we got eventually. After losing consecutive wickets in the powerplay to get to 160, it was a commendable effort, and to defend it at the same time, brilliant performance by the team.”

Still, it was not a perfect outing for India’s seamers. They missed their lengths on multiple occasions and Arshdeep and Mukesh were lucky to get the wickets of McDermott and Matthew Short, respectively, off full tosses.

“According to the standards we have set as a bowling unit in the Indian team, it was not even near par,” Arshdeep accepted. “But a lot of lessons learnt and, in the future, I will make sure to rectify those mistakes and come back stronger.”