'We know how lethal Shami can be, you saw what he did'

Praising the last over heroic of Mohammed Shami against Australia, India skipper Rohit Sharma said that he knew that the veteran pacer could play a lethal role in the match and wanted to give the star pacer the challenge to bowl last over.

A brilliant knock from KL Rahul and a three-wicket haul masterclass by Mohammed Shami helped India inflict a 6 runs defeat on Australia and bundled out the hosts for 180 in ICC T20 World Cup warm-up match here at the Gabba in Brisbane on Monday.

Mohammed Shami defended 11 runs in the final over to hand India a 6-run victory over Australia in a warm-up match.

"Mohammed Shami was brilliant. We know how lethal he can be with the ball, and we all saw what happened. He is coming back after a long time, so we wanted to give him an over. Wanted to give him a challenge and let him bowl the final over, and you saw what he did," Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation.

Talking about India's batting performance against the hosts, Rohit praised star India batter Suryakumar Yadav who played a knock of 50 runs in 33 balls.

"I thought we batted well, towards the end we could have added 10-15 runs more. We always want a set batter to stay till the end, Suryakumar Yadav did it, overall a great batting effort with a nice bounce, was a pitch where you can trust your shots. You got to be smart with batting on grounds like these. You can't forget to push the balls into the gaps, scoring 8-9 runs in an over can be quite an effective plan," the India skipper added.

Citing that the men in blue can improve, Sharma added,"It was a great practice game for us. There is room for improvement, but I want more consistency from the bowlers. You need to keep things simple and hit the deck hard. Overall a good game for us, they had a decent partnership and that put us under pressure."