India skipper Rohit’s faith in paceman Siraj pays off

India’s Mohammed Siraj celebrates the wicket of Pakistan’s Abdullah Shafique in Ahmedabad on Saturday. Pic/PTI

In such a huge game, like India-Pakistan, the toss plays a key role. Rohit Sharma has a very happy relationship with tosses and he won another on Saturday in Ahmedabad.

What surprised me was that India elected to bowl and as it turned out, this was the right decision. But I thought in a big game like this they would have wanted to bat first and put up 300-plus to apply pressure on the Pakistanis. They decided to bowl and it worked out superbly for them in the end. Pakistan looked good for the first 30 overs, starting well with Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq. Abdullah looks a good player - still head, nice balance at the crease, natural attacking instinct. Both openers took 20 off Mohammed Siraj's first two overs, but then Rohit persevered with Siraj for the third over, and he got Abdullah caught, with the cross seam-held off cutter which the bowlers used a lot later on as well.

Biggest turning point

Babar and Imam also had a small partnership. Then came the biggest turning point of the game when Hardik Pandya got Imam. Why do I say this was a bigger kind of a moment in the game than a couple of other big moments? It's because Imam, being a left hander… if he had been at the crease when Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav came on to bowl, he would have been able to handle them easier and their threat would have reduced.

Rohit Sharma

Jadeja was metronomic as ever and bowled fantastically well, literally every ball in the right area. Kuldeep was great, aggressive and is looking better with each game. This partnership of Jadeja and Kuldeep is working out well for India.

Jadeja cramped the Pakistanis a little bit and Rohit brought Kuldeep slightly later so that they would try to attack him as well.

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All in all, Rohit had a fantastic day in the field. He made a couple of good decisions, giving Siraj that third over after he went for 20 in his first two. It was a courageous call. When he brought Siraj back, he got a big wicket as well. So, Pakistan did something which only they can do! They are such an unpredictable team and they took that unpredictable tag to a different level altogether on Saturday with 155 for 2 to 191 all out. It looked like a 300 pitch, but it played like a 240-250 strip. So, 191 was way below par for the Indians to chase and as soon as they came in, Shaheen Afridi looked in no rhythm whatsoever.

Aggressive Rohit

Rohit has adopted this ultra aggressive approach in his first few overs and he did that by flicking balls for boundaries. With Shubman Gill back in the team, there was never any threat at all. It was just a matter of time.

Rohit fell short of his 100 by 14 runs. I was hoping that he gets a hundred in such a huge World Cup game - at home, as captain, it could have been fantastic for him. But all in all, India had a great game. Shreyas Iyer looked good once again, put his head down, got that short ball kind of threat out of the way by taking on Haris Rauf and Afridi. Gill looked good as well. The ball which he got out to, he square cut it like a million miles an hour, but Shadab took a fantastic catch at backward point. Otherwise, India would have got near this total without the loss of any wickets. India look like they are firing on all cylinders!

Jatin Paranjape, the ex-India and Mumbai batsman, is a former national selector too. He tweets @jats72