Rohit Sharma talks about his mid-pitch strategy with MS Dhoni

The 3rd One-Day International (ODI) between India and Sri Lanka on Sunday saw the visitors take an unassailable 3-0 lead in the 5-match series. While pacer, Jasprit Bumrah picked up 5 wickets, it was the unbeaten knock of 124 runs from the opener, Rohit Sharma that steered India to victory. Sharma was ably assisted by the former skipper, MS Dhoni (67*), who maintained his calm demeanour as always and the duo stitched a mammoth partnership of 157 runs between themselves.

Having won the toss, Sri Lankan stand-in captain, Chamara Kapugedara chose to bat first and the hosts were only able to put up a meagre total of 217 runs, owing to the insipid batting performances put up by the team, barring a gritty inning worth 80 runs from Lahiru Thirimanne. In reply, the top wickets of Shikhar Dhawan, skipper Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Kedar Jadhav were quick to fall, but Sharma and Dhoni rotated the strike judiciously and hit the required boundaries, leading India to a 6-wicket victory, with 29 balls to spare.

The strategy

After the conclusion of the match, Bumrah and Sharma were captured in a chat together for BCCI.tv. Speaking to his Mumbai Indians teammate about the proceedings of the game, the prolific batsman said, “Obviously it is not a good feeling when you see wickets falling at the other end. But we always knew that one big partnership was required at that point. We saw it even in the last game that one big partnership and we won the game,”

“That was the talk and that was the idea to try and create a partnership and yes MS Dhoni has been such an experienced player in that situation. He has batted in that situation so many times and bailed the team out. So all we were trying to do was take it over by over and just take the game till the end. We knew that if we bat till the 45th or 46th over, we would win the game. That was the idea and that was the talk in the middle,” Rohit concluded.