After losing their first warm-up clash against New Zealand, India announced their arrival in style. India crushed Bangladesh by a comprehensive margin of 95 runs. KL Rahul, MS Dhoni and the spinners stood up and gave a great come back, which pleased captain Virat Kohli.
However, the potential worry for the Indian management could be the form, or the lack of it, for the Indian openers. Both the warm-up matches were played on greenish pitches and hence, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan struggled to get going against New Zealand and Bangladesh.
India's prolific run in ODIs is primarily due to the fact that their top order has been churning out runs and while, Kohli looked in great touch, both Rohit and Dhawan looked out of sorts. However, the skipper is not losing his sleep over this and believes his seasoned duo will stand up and score runs when it matters the most.
'Shikhar and Rohit are quality players'
"We have had two good challenges in the two games while batting first. Shikhar and Rohit are quality players, they become stars in ICC events. Ideally, we would have liked to chase today. I understand if guys don't get going right away in this format," Kohli said after the match.
The captain also said that there could be a lack of motivation in the warm-up matches because of the number of matches the Indian players play right through the year. "In warm-up games, at times, you don't get the motivation especially because of the amount of cricket that we play. But I am glad about what we got out of these two games," he further added.
The skipper was also very happy with the performance of his wrist-spinners as Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal picked six wickets combined. This is a massive shot in the arm for the Indian team heading into the tournament. Both the spinners have been trump cards for Kohli over the past 15 months and are his attacking options in the middle overs.
"We were challenged by their batsmen as well but we bowled well and our spinners got wickets too. Bumrah got us the breakthrough and Chahal and Kuldeep got us six wickets," Kohli reflected.
The captain sounded pleased with the efforts of his team in the warm-up clashes. India will now take on South Africa in their first match of this World Cup on June 5, at Southampton.
