T20 World Cup: England captain Brook impressed by Bumrah’s performance in 2nd semi-final
Praises Bumrah’s crucial 18th over and Axar Patel’s stunning catch, says England 'extremely proud' despite narrow defeat to India
While England captain Harry Brook was clearly devastated for dropping Sanju Samson, he was astonished by the way Jasprit Bumrah performed to push back the English batters chasing 254, which could have become the highest ever chase, during the second semi-final of the ICC T20 World Cup, at Wankhede Stadium, in Mumbai on Thursday.
Bumrah squeezed a tight 18th over to allow only six runs, which left England with the improbable task of 39 runs to score from the final two overs. “He’s a very good bowler, arguably the best of all time at the minute. He’s been a very good bowler for a long time. The Indians also fielded extremely well, that catch by Axar Patel to dismiss was arguably one of the best catches I’ve seen as well so yeah, hats off to them,” added Brook.
Chasing India’s 253/7, England went on to score 246/7-- making it a 499 runs as combined total of the both teams. “They’ve got some extremely good players and they’re clean ball-strikers. Unfortunately, we didn’t probably execute as well as we could have done and that cost us slightly alongside with some drop catches in there as well,” added Brook, who also appreciated Jacob Bethell’s 105 fighting till the last over.
“I am disappointed, but extremely proud. Couldn’t ask for much more as a captain to be honest. I think we’ve had an amazing campaign. As I said the other day, we’re never out of games and that’s proven again tonight. We were in the game all the way until the last over.”
“I’m just extremely proud of the boys and all the boys should be extremely proud of themselves as well. Bethell is a phenomenal player. As we’ve seen tonight in a high pressure situation against India on their home turf as well. The way that he played that innings there was just phenomenal. He’s going to have a hell of a career with England. I’m looking forward to hopefully spending a lot of time with him in the future,” he added.
Targeting Varun Chakravarthy, the England skipper said the team had a proper plan against the Indian ‘mystery’ spinner.
“We identified that Chakravarthy bowls short and Bethell put him away early on and as every bowler does, he tried to go a bit fuller and he hit him to (a) six back over his head. It’s just the cricket smarts and just trying to figure out what their bowling attack is trying to do and the match-ups as well,” he added.
