Ravi Bopara believes Stuart Board should have been given the man of the match award following England ’s win over South Africa on Sunday.
By Prateek Srivastava in Chennai
Man of the Match Bopara scored a circumspect 60 on a very difficult pitch at the Chidambaram Stadium to help England recover from 15/3 to 171. Broad then led the English bowling attack with the figures of 4/15 as the Three Lions won the Group B thriller by 6 runs.
"I am very pleased with my efforts but Broad should been named man of the match instead of me. I think it was his bowling that did the job for us," Bopara told reporters after the match.
England captain Andrew Strauss dropped out-of-form Paul Collingwood to fit in Bopara in the XI. Clearly, the 25-year-old was under immense pressure as a bad outing here might have been the end of his tournament. The prospect of a low and slow pitch was also terrifying but the Punjabi boy was determined to make his point.
When asked what was going on in his mind when he joined Jonathan Trott at the crease, he right-handed batsman replied, "I knew it was not a great batting wicket so I had to adapt to it. Also, we had only 200 runs on our mind. And that really helped. However, we fell short of that target. Thanks to our bowlers that we were able to turn it around from there."
Strauss was also happy that his gamble with Bopara paid off.
"He has been in the wings for some time now. He has gained valuable experience in the last couple of years. It's exciting to have him back in the team. It was a tough call on Collingwood who has been an integral part of us for a long time. But in the end I am happy with what Bopara has done," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment