India opener KL Rahul feels the series-sealing win over West Indies was a good learning experience in setting up big totals, something his team has not been able to do consistently. Rahul slammed a match-winning 91 as India won the series-decider by 67 runs in Mumbai on Wednesday. India have been good chasers but don’t often set big targets. But on Wednesday night, India posted a mammoth 240 for three as Rahul, skipper Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma hit explosive half-centuries.
“I don’t know really the exact answer to that, but we are looking to work on first innings if whenever we have to bat (and) start the innings. At times, we have tried to get…we start off thinking we want more than 200 or that’s T20 cricket nowadays, no total is enough, you always feel like you are 10-15 runs short,” he said.
“So at times we have tried to over achieve and when you are batting first and setting a target that often happens, not just in T20 cricket but in any format. So it’s a good learning for us and each game we play in we get an opportunity to bat first we learn something new and today was a good confidence booster for all of us and hopefully we can continue to do that more often.”
“(There were) Similar scenarios, (but the) wicket was a bit different. Bengaluru had lot more to offer, when you lose couple of wickets early or then the pressure is always on the team batting first and like we have often tried to get bigger total and we have failed to achieve, that happens with every team when you are trying to set a target.
“No total is good enough nowadays and you want to give that extra 20-25 runs to the bowlers and with the dew coming in, so there is lot of pressure batting first and there is lot of responsibility and at times we have failed and that okay, we can accept it and we learn,” he said.
