Legendary Sachin Tendulkar has gone on to pick two standout performers from the Indian side in the ICC World Cup 2019. Despite being knocked out from the semi-finals of the World Cup after suffering an 18-run defeat to New Zealand, There were some brilliant individual performances from the Virat Kohli-led Indian side.
Tendulkar, who was a part of the commentary panel of World Cup, had no hesitation in picking India vice-captain Rohit Sharma and World’s No. 1 fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah as the most impressive performers from the Indian side.
“Everyone played their part to be honest but if I had to pick then it has to be Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah, they were fantastic,” Sachin told 100 MB.
Explaining Rohit’s batsmanship, Sachin said the biggest takeaway was that Rohit put a price-tag on his wicket
“Rohit was brilliant in the entire tournament; he also scored a record 5 hundreds in the World Cup. The most impressive thing about his batting was that he understood the value of his wicket,” Sachin said.
Rohit finished as the highest run-scorer of World Cup 2019 with 648 runs to his name and many believe his failure in the semi-final – he was dismissed for only 1 – was one of the main reasons behind India’s failure to chase down 240 in the semi-finals.
Sachin was all praise for Bumrah too, who finished as India’s highest wicket-taker with 18 scalps to his name.
“Bumrah was terrific throughout the tournament. No one actually could get on top of him,” Sachin added.
When asked about India’s performance in the World Cup, Sachin said barring a couple of matches, Kohli’s men were simply superb.
“India lost only one match in the group stage, which was great. The openers continued to give good starts and middle-order too chipped in when needed. Whenever provided with a good launch pad the likes of Pandya and Pant pushed India to a good total. Yes, the lower middle did not perform that well but they were well backed up by the bowlers. Our bowling was very good barring one or two games,” Sachin said.
