Kohli hails Jadhav's difference-making spell

Virat Kohli hailed Kedar Jadhav as the difference-maker after India hammered Bangladesh to reach the ICC Champions Trophy final.

India claimed a nine-wicket win at Edgabston on Thursday to set up a final with arch-rivals Pakistan at The Oval on Sunday.

Rohit Sharma starred with the bat, scoring 123 off 129 balls and sharing an unbroken stand of 178 with skipper Kohli (96 not out) as India easily chased down a target of 265 with 59 deliveries to spare.

But Bangladesh's total could have been much more imposing had Jadhav (2-22) not claimed the key wickets of Tamim Iqbal (70) and Mushfiqur Rahim (61), who had guided the Tigers to a strong position at 154-2.

Kohli said of Jadhav's spell at the post-match media conference: "Hardik [Pandya] went for a few in his first three, so we wanted to give him a bit of a break and cover up overs through Kedar, and with one left-hander batting, we knew that he had the ability to get in two, three, dot balls to the left-hander every over. But it ended up changing the whole game for us.

"When moves like this pay off, I won't take the whole credit. Obviously I asked MS [Dhoni], as well, and we both decided that Kedar is a good option at the moment, and he bowled really well. I mean, credit to him.

"He doesn't bowl much in the nets, but he's a smart cricketer. He knows where batsmen get in trouble, and if you can think like a batter when you're bowling, it's obviously a bit of an advantage to any bowler, so I think that he executed perfectly.

"Kedar's spell was probably the difference in the game for us when we were bowling, and he got us those breakthroughs and then we were able to build on it, and I think that the wicket was easily a 300-, 310-par wicket, and to get 260, to restrict them to 260 on that sort of wicket, they never got away from us, and that is a good thing about our bowling.

"We never let them get to six an over, as well. So I think from that point of view, it was very clinical by the bowlers, especially looking at how flat the wicket was, I think they adapted really well."