Dhoni praises Kohli, hails bowlers for making Aussies play big shots

virat kohli odiAdelaide: A scintillating innings (90 off 55 balls) from Virat Kohli, followed by some astounding performance from young Jasprit Bumrah (3-23) and R Ashwin (2-28) and Ravindra Jadeja 2-21) helped India beat Australia by 37 runs in the first T20 match at Adelaide on Tuesday.

Describing it as a good game, Indian skipper MS Dhoni was in all praise for his Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina for their batting and hailed his bowlers for making the Australian batsmen play big shots. "It was a good game," said Dhoni, adding, “It was good to see our bowlers making the batsmen play the big shots. Rohit started well, followed by Virat and well supported by Raina. Raina and Yuvi have had just one net session, which is why I promoted myself ahead of Yuvraj. We bowled superbly after that. I felt once Pandya went through that first over he would bowl much better. He was executing the yorker well and bowling the wide ball well.”

Praising Kohli for his innings, Aaron Finch said, He is hard to stop when he gets going. We executed well with the ball, but le t ourselves down with the fielding. 170 would have been a nice score. When we got our chance to bat, I slowed down a bit and cost ourselves a bit of momentum.”

Meanwhile, man-of-the-match, Virat Kohli said, “I could take this stadium with me wherever I bat. I just try to keep things simple. I believe that in T20 as well. This stadium is right up there with anywhere in the world. I would love to thank the fans for coming out and supporting us.”