India captain Rohit Sharma has refrained from making excuses for dropping catches in the recently concluded first ODI against Sri Lanka at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium. Although errors committed on the field didn’t harm India in the long run but fielding lapses never show a good picture of any cricket team.
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Both stars with the bat in the first innings after Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka won the toss and chose to bowl, Sharma and his predecessor Virat Kohli dropped boundary catches preventing India from registering one of their bigger ODI wins (by runs).
“You got to be in the game to take those half chances. You are not going to have a perfect game always. There are certain areas to work on as a group,” Sharma told Star Sports during the post-match presentation ceremony.
Rohit Sharma explains why he withdrew Non Striker run out by bowler to dismiss Dasun Shanaka
The 35-year old player expressed awe of Shanaka for scoring a career-best 108* (88) at a strike rate of 122.72 . A beneficiary of India’s on-field blunders, Shanaka’s second ODI century was the only reason why the home team failed to register a one-sided victory defending a mammoth 374-run target.
In no mood to give up in spite of minimal chances of winning the match, Shanaka hit 12 fours and three sixes to accept a challenge put forward by the Indian bowlers. It was right before reaching the three-figure mark that Shanaka was run-out at the non-striker’s end by India fast bowler Mohammed Shami after he backed up too far.
Sharma, however, opted to withdraw the appeal to give his counterpart another chance of completing a personal milestone. In what was more of a light moment between players in a harmless situation, it might not have happened had it been a tense match situation.
“I mean I had no idea [Mohammed] Shami did that. Again, he [Dasun Shanaka] is batting on 98* and the way he batted was brilliant. Cannot get him out like that and wanted to get him out the way we wanted to get him out. Hats off to him,” Sharma added.
Running a non-striker for backing up too far has been the talk of the town of late. Melbourne Stars captain Adam Zampa attempting the same unsuccessfully in a Big Bash League match a week ago had received a similar response (for a different reason though) from their head coach David Hussey.
