The Indian cricket team finally returned to winning ways on Wednesday night, delivering their fans a nice little chhoti Diwali gift- albeit maybe a bit too late. The Virat Kohli-led outfit trounced Afghanistan by 66-runs in their group-stage encounter to register their first victory in the tournament and stay in contention for the semi-finals.
It was just a matter of time before India’s out-of-form batting order finally rediscovered some of their lost momentum. It was the opening pair of Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul at the top, scoring a partnership of 140-runs to build the foundation of India’s innings. Both the openers scored half-centuries, and following their dismissal, Hardik Pandya (35 off 13) and Rishabh Pant (27 off 13) capped off the batting display in perfect fashion. Courtesy of this swashbuckling performance, India finished at 210/2- the highest total in the tournament thus far- and gave themselves a fair shot of improving their Net Run Rate (NRR).
Rohit Sharma hits a six at dugout; Kohli tries to claim catch
Rohit Sharma, in particular, had a real field-day out there with the willow in his hands. His innings of 74 off 47 balls comprised of 8 boundaries and 3 maximums; one of which almost ended up being a catch in the Indian dugout by his captain Virat Kohli!
In the fifth over of the Indian innings, Rohit clobbered Afghan pacer Naveen-ul-Haq for a monster six over long-off. The shot sailed over past the boundary rope and landed directly into the Indian team’s pavilion. The on-air cameras showed Virat Kohli sitting directly under the ball and trying to catch the flying ball. If it weren’t for the slippery batting gloves he had on his hands, Kohli could’ve claimed one of the finest dugout catches of all time. Here’s the video of Rohit’ enormous ‘Shpageeza’ and Kohli’s catch that could have been.
Match Summary
The Mohammed Nabi-led Afghanistan team really didn’t have much on-field presence tonight, which was quite a departure from the energy that they’ve shown all throughout the tournament so far. Gulbadin Naib (1/39) and Karim Janat (1/7) were their sole wicket-takers from the night. On the batting front, they never really found their way going into this mammoth chase. Ravichandran Ashwin, making a comeback into the Indian team after nearly four years, derailed them early on in their effort with a fabulous spell of 4-0-2-14.
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In fact, if it weren’t for face-saving 57-run partnership from Nabi (35 off 32) and Janat (42 off 22), the Afghans could’ve had taken a strong nosedive on their NRR. Tonight’s result keeps them firmly locked on the second spot of Group 2’s points-table with one game to go against New Zealand.
Brief scores: India 210/2 (R Sharma 74, KL Rahul 69, K Janat 1/7) beat Afghanistan 144/7 (K Janat 42, M Nabi 35, M Shami 3/ 32).