India's T20I captain Hardik Pandya was a happy man after the Men in Blue registered a thumping win over West Indies in the 4th T20I against West Indies on Saturday. Riding on the back of a record-breaking outing from openers Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal, India chased down 179 in Lauderhill to win by 9 wickets. Meanwhile, Pandya had a piece of advice for his batters, stating that they need to take more responsibility.
Jaiswal and Gill produced a brilliant outing as the duo went on to register a joint second-highest stand in T20Is for India. Jaiswal's 84 was his first fifty in T20Is and he became the youngest Indian opener to score a T20I fifty in India's win. Pandya was pleased with the effort and stated that they need to keep taking on more responsibilities and support the bowling group.
"Gill and Jaiswal were brilliant. There is no doubt over their skillset. They just needed to spend some time between the wickets. Going forward we have to take more responsibility as a batting group and support the bowlers. I've always believed bowlers win matches," said Pandya after the match.
India went down in the first two T20Is by close margins as Windies took a 2-0 lead. Pandya reflected on team's outing in those two games too. "We lost two games but in the first game it was our own errors. We were cruising and in the last four overs we slipped. We spoke about how these kinds of games show our character. The boys took it (defeats) in their stride. The two games (after the first two defeats) we played reflected that we pulled up our socks and played some good cricket,” he added.
Meanwhile, Jaiswal thanked the captain Hardik Pandya for the support. He also stated that he batted as per the team's needs. "I would love to thank Hardik bhai and the support staff, the way they have spoken had an impact. I just like to go out and enjoy myself," Jaiswal said. I just try to play how the team needs and how I can express myself. I think of how quickly I can score and how many runs I can get in the power play. Of course, reading the wicket and the situation (matters), but my intent is always to score runs," he added.
