T20 World Cup 2021: Match 37, India vs Scotland – Who Said What

India galloped to a mind-boggling eight-wicket victory, decimating Scotland in every sense of the word to climb up to the third spot in their group points tally. India’s qualification hopes still rely on the result of the Afghanistan vs New Zealand fixture on November 7, but everything they had in their hands was done clinically under the Dubai night sky, as they won the contest with a whopping 81 balls to spare.

For a change, Virat Kohli won the toss and – without a thought – did what others have been doing this tournament throughout: opt to bowl. The Indian bowlers were clinical, skittling Scotland out for a paltry 85 in 17.4 overs. None of the Scottish batters were able to apply themselves against the might of the bowlers, who went all guns blazing, much like the batters would do later in the chase.

Even India’s most expensive bowler on the night – R Ashwin – conceded runs at 7.25, while all others were less than run-a-ball. George Munsey, one of the four batters of his team to muster double-digit scores, was the only one who looked like being able to tackle India, launching some impressive switch hits off Ashwin in the powerplay before perishing for 24 off 19.

Calum MacLeod stayed in the middle for a brief while, with wickets tumbling around him, but he could not hit a single boundary in his 28-ball 16. The only other double-digit efforts were Michael Leask’s 21 off 12 and Mark Watt’s 14 off 13.

The key takeaway for India (of course, keeping aside Ravindra Jadeja’s incredible spell of 3/15) was the way Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami delivered. The duo bowled a maiden each; Shami returned with exceptional figures of 3/15, while Bumrah recorded 2/10.

India knew they had to finish the chase in a maximum of 7.1 overs to pip New Zealand and Afghanistan’s NRR; they did it in 6.3, thanks to some belief-defying ball-striking by KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma, who knocked down 70 off the target in merely 30 balls. En route to that crushing carnage, Rahul smoked three sixes and six fours to notch up a half-century off just 18 deliveries.

The stand was broken when Rohit, who struck five fours and one six in his 16-ball 30, was pinned lbw by Brad Wheal. Rahul, meanwhile, holed out to long-on off Mark Watt in the next over, before Suryakumar Yadav sealed India the game with a down-the-ground six off Chris Greaves. Could there ever be a better birthday gift for the winning skipper?

Losing skipper Kyle Coetzer:

We were outclassed in every department. The only way we’re going to improve is by getting games like this. Boys are still going to take something out of this. Mark has been excellent for us all tournament. He has a great set of skills, he has learnt a lot from other spinners too. That’s another important reason for us to be in this tournament. He (Leask) is a fantastic striker of the cricket ball, lovely to watch.

Winning skipper Virat Kohli:

A dominating performance, something that we were striving to do again. Now it will be interesting to see what happens on 7th (November). Don’t want to say a lot about today’s performance, we know what we can do. Also tells you how important the toss can be at this venue. We wanted to get them under 110-120 max, that was the mindset we went in with. The bowlers were excellent, and then KL and Rohit did really well. We spoke about the 8-10 over bracket before the start, didn’t want to really go too hard because if you lose wickets, then an extra 20 balls could cost. We thought that if they play naturally, runs will come quickly. If you look at our practice games, we have been actually batting like this only. Just a couple of aberrations happened, where we just couldn’t got those two successive good overs. Teams bowled well too, and created pressure on us. But we were just two overs of good batting. Jadeja bowled really well, also Shami was quite good. My family is here – that is enough (birthday) celebration for me.

Player of the Match Ravindra Jadeja:

I was enjoying bowling on this track today. The odd ball was turning, I was enjoying very much. The first one (Berrington’s wicket) was a special one, whenever you get a batsman out with a turning ball, that’s always special. We were looking to play good brand of cricket. Everybody knows that we had to win with a big margin for us to up our net run-rate, we were looking to play our best game and give our 100% on the field. Everybody’s happy, one more game to go, hopefully we play like this. If we play like this, nobody can beat us. In T20 format, we have to play like this, that is for sure.