England thrashed the Indian team by 10 wickets here on Thursday at the Adelaide Oval. The English openers Jos Buttler and Alex Hales built a mammoth partnership of 170 runs and helped England beat India in the second semifinal of the T20 World Cup 2022. England will now face Pakistan in the finals of the mega event. Skipper Jos Buttler made 80 runs in just 49 balls and Alex Hales came up with a quick-fire 86 off just 47 deliveries.
Earlier, India batted first and scored 168 runs in 20 overs. Virat Kohli yet again starred with the bat and scored a brilliant half-century. Hardik Pandya too played a blinder as he made 63 runs in just 33 balls. Opener KL Rahul once again failed to deliver as he got out after scoring just 5 runs.
India was nowhere a competitor in the game. The match was entirely dominated by England in both innings. A poor showcase of captaincy by Rohit Sharma which highlighted his inability to rotate his bowlers. On the other hand, the England opening batsmen played with gusto and sent all the Indian balls on a merry-go-round of the Adelaide Oval.
In the post match presentation, Rohit Sharma said, "Pretty disappointed how it turned up today. We batted well at the backend to get that score. We were not upto the mark with the ball, we couldn't turn up today. It's all about handling the pressure in knockout games. All these guys have played enough to understand that. These guys have played under pressure in IPL games, it's all about keeping calm. We were nervy to start with, but you got to give credit to their openers, they played really well. I thought it swung a bit in the first over, but not from the right areas. We know the runs are scored square off the wicke, we were aware about it. When we won the first game, it showed a lot of character."
"It will be right up there for sure (referring to a perfect innings). Huge occasion, India in a semifinal of a World Cup, really happy with the way I played and it is as special as it gets. This is one of the best grounds to bat in especially in the powerplay, a really good surface and great value for good cricket shots, this is a ground I have good memories of and enjoy batting here. I never thought I would play in a World Cup again, so to get the chance is a very special feeling, in a country (Australia) that I love and spend a lot of time in, tonight is one of the best night's of my career. Jos was unbelievable", Alex Hales said.
India Squad: KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma(c), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Deepak Hooda.
England Squad: Jos Buttler(w/c), Alex Hales, Dawid Malan, Ben Stokes, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood, Chris Jordan, David Willey, Tymal Mills, Philip Salt.