Nagpur, Feb 6 (IANS): India skipper Rohit Sharma said the idea behind promoting Axar Patel to No.5 in the batting order in the first ODI against England was to maintain the left-hand-right-hand batting combination and to exploit the left-arm spinner's improved batting prowess.
Chasing a modest target of 249 after Ravindra Jadeja (3-26) and debutant Harshit Rana (3-53) helped bundle out England for less than 250, India lost Rohit and Yashasvi Jaiswal with 19 runs on the board. Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer (59) added 94 runs for the third wicket. But the crucial decision to promote Axar Patel paid rich dividends as the allrounder scored a superb 52 and shared a 108-run partnership with Gill, who top-scored with 87, as India won the match by four wickets with 11 overs to spare.
Rohit said the idea behind promoting Axar was to exploit the situation as England had two spinners who were going to bowl into the left hander.
"We want a lefty in the middle, it is simple. We know they have a couple of spinners who are going to bowl into the left-handers and we wanted one out there. Axar is an improved batter in the last couple of years, we got to see that today. We needed a partnership and Gill and Axar batted really well," said Rohit in the post-match presentation on Thursday.
Rohit said he was pretty happy with the win as India were played a 50-over match after a long gap (after a three-match series against early last year).
"Pretty happy because we knew we were coming after a long time to this format. We wanted to quickly regroup and understand what is to be done. Didn't start off well with their openers putting pressure on us, but the way we came back was superb.
"This is a slightly longer format where you have time to come back. When things start to go away from you, it doesn't mean it will keep going away," said Rohit, who himself failed to make the most of the opportunity and could score only two runs.
The Indian skipper gave credit to the bowlers for setting up the victory.
"Credit to the bowlers, everyone chipped in. It was important for us to keep going, we took wickets at crucial times, and the energy on the field was brilliant as well," he said.
Though the win is a crucial one for India ahead of the Champions Trophy, Rohit said he was not thinking of the Champions Trophy as the next goal and wanted to use these three matches to make sure his team is doing the right things.
"Nothing specific, overall as a team I want to make sure we keep on doing the right things. Try and tick every box there is to be ticked in bowling and batting. Did that pretty much though I felt we shouldn't have lost the wickets at the end," concluded Rohit.
India next take on England in the second ODI at Cuttack three days from now and hope to seal the ODI series too after winning the five-match T20I series 4-1.