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Home » Cricket Home » News » India vs England: 'Shikhar Dhawan's Body Language Was Amazing Even in Bench' - Virat Kohli

India vs England: 'Shikhar Dhawan's Body Language Was Amazing Even in Bench' - Virat Kohli

India captain Virat Kohli was rich in praise of Shikhar Dhawan, saying the opener's body language was 'amazing' even when he was in the bench

India vs England: 'Shikhar Dhawan's Body Language Was Amazing Even in Bench' - Virat Kohli

dhawandhawanIndia captain Virat Kohli was rich in praise of Shikhar Dhawan, saying the opener’s body language was ‘amazing’ even when he was in the bench through the T20I series. Dhawan was left out of the Indian XI for the T20Is after the first game, with the likes of Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav getting chances. Kohli himself opened in the last T20I, leaving question marks over Dhawan’s T20I future.

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Dhawan, though, was unfazed in the first ODI as he smashed 98 off 106 to power India to 317, which India went on to win by 66 runs.

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“A special mention to Shikhar,” Kohli said in the post match presentation. “His body language was amazing when he wasn’t playing. He was motivating players, running with extra stuff like water. Today he deservedly got the result he achieved. Made a very important contribution. You saw it was tricky first up and the openers had to start off that way. In that context, his innings was very important since he batted the tough overs. His contribution was better than what the scorecard was.”

England were cruising at 135 for no loss in 14 overs at one stage before India pulled it back through their pacers, with Prasidh Krishna bagging four, Shardul Thakur getting three and Bhuvneshwar Kumar getting two wickets.

“One of our sweetest victories in recent past. We haven’t won many good games in ODIs. A comeback from all our bowlers, getting nine wickets so quickly is outstanding.  Going for few runs early on (Prasidh) and coming back was amazing. Krunal as well. Shardul, Bhuvi were amazing.

“I am a really proud man right now. Team showed great character and intensity. As I’ve mentioned in the past as well, we promote players who have intent and back their skills. Special mention to Shikhar’s innings as well. Didn’t get much after the first T20I. KL as well, back among the runs. So we want to back people who will do a selfless job. It’s a healthy competition between everyone for every slot. We have 2-3 players available for every slot. The management has done these discussions with senior players as well. We are on the right path.”

Kohli also opened up on their batting plan, lauding KL Rahul and Krunal Pandya for their late burst that powered them past 300.

“When I was batting, I told Shikhar that between 31-40 I’d look to take the bowlers on,” he said. “We lost a few wickets and there was a brief pushback but Krunal and KL then took it away. If I had stayed with Shikhar around that 40 over period we could’ve got 350. England hit some amazing shots, and scores will be high scoring moving forward, and we’ll look to get bigger scores moving forward.”

Team Rankings

RankTeamPointsRating
1 Australia 3028 116
2 New Zealand 2406 115
3 India 3085 114
4 England 4326 106
5 Sri Lanka 2454 91
FULL Ranking
RankTeamPointsRating
1 England 5405 123
2 India 6102 117
3 New Zealand 3716 116
4 Australia 4344 111
5 South Africa 3345 108
FULL Ranking
RankTeamPointsRating
1 England 6877 275
2 Australia 6800 272
3 India 10186 268
4 Pakistan 7516 259
5 South Africa 5047 252
FULL Ranking

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