Asia Cup 2018: India meet Hong Kong players following close win, see pics

Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni click pictures with their counterparts. (Source: BCCI TV)

India beat Hong Kong by 26 runs in their opening fixture of the Asia Cup 2018 on Tuesday. After the match, in a rare and heartwarming gesture, members of the Indian cricket team called on the Hong Kong captain Anshuman Rath and the rest of the Hong Kong team to join for some candid photos. The BCCI posted a video of the moment on its website where Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni, Dinesh Karthik, Kuldeep Yadav are seen interacting with the likes of Nizakat Khan, Babar Hayat, Kinchit Shah among others.

After the match, India skipper Rohit Sharma was all praise for his opponents and said, “You have to give credit to Hong Kong. They played really well and showed good determination. Great partnership and great batting from those two openers. Great learning for the bowling group. To handle the situations was important. It was better to have this in the first game of the tournament.”

Dressing Room 📹: #TeamIndia’s heart-warming gesture.

After a hard-fought game, #TeamIndia visited Hong Kong’s dressing room and met the promising cricketers, posed for pictures and shared their knowledge – by @28anand.

Full video here – https://t.co/RtbuJ5biVo pic.twitter.com/CTkOO7T90I

— BCCI (@BCCI) 19 September 2018

 

Meanwhile, losing captain Anshuman Rath reflected on the defeat and said it was a bittersweet pill to swallow. “We are proud but it is bittersweet. We were in a position to win and probably should have. We had a good start but lost too many key wickets in the middle but credit to the Indian bowlers. They bowled well and bowled to their plans. (On Hong Kong’s fearless brand of cricket) We have had no pressure coming into the tournament and wanted to play with a smile on our faces on the big stage. We’ve done that and done ourselves proud. Would have been great if we had rolled over the best team in the world, wasn’t to be but super proud of the boys,” Rath said at the post-match press conference.

Get latest updates on IPL 2024 from IPL Points Table to Teams, Schedule, Most Runs and Most Wickets along with live score updates for all matches. Also get Sports news and more cricket updates.