Indian cricket team signs off T20 World Cup with win against Namibia

Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul's fiery partnership helped team India defeat Namibia by nine wickets in the final Super 12 match of the ongoing T20 World Cup here at Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

Chasing 133, both and Sharma and Rahul played knocks of 56 and 54 runs and thrashed the Namibian bowlers. Earlier, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja picked three wickets each as Men in Blue restricted Namibia to 132/8. Namibia got a sigh of relief after Rohit Sharma was dismissed by Jan Frylinck in the tenth over, but their happiness did not last long as Surya Kumar Yadav joined Rahul and chased the target in just 15.2 overs.

Put to bat first, Namibia got off to a decent start as the side scored 31 runs in the first four overs. Jasprit Bumrah got the scalp of Michael van Lingen in the fifth over, which triggered a collapse.

India's exit from the tournament was confirmed over the weekend when New Zealand beat Afghanistan and proceeded to the next stage

After the curtain came down on his four-year stint coaching India, Ravi Shastri said Virat Kohli has been one of the great ambassadors for the game, especially in red-ball cricket.

Fresh from seeing his men finish their ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2021 campaign with a nine-wicket win over Namibia, the outgoing coach - who was first involved with the squad as a director in 2014 - praised his team's all-conquering past despite a disappointing end to their time in the UAE.

When asked about the Indian team having each other's back, Shastri said in the virtual press conference on November 8: "We actively worked towards it. We wanted trust in that dressing room. That's the only way you can get each other's back. We wanted no finger-pointing at each other. We needed the word 'I' to be thrown into the dustbin and the word 'we' coming in."

"With Virat leading the way, he's been one of the great ambassadors for the games, especially when you look at red-ball cricket, the way he's embraced it. And it's allowed other players on the team to follow suit. You've got to give credit where it's due."

"So it's a team culture, which was impressed upon the team to follow, and they followed it to the hilt. They played fearless cricket round the globe," he added.

(ANI)