Live Score
Cricket Teams
Cricket Players
T20 WC: India beat Afghanistan by 66 runs, keep chance of reaching semis alive
The openers raised a century partnership and R Ashwin played his first game of the T20 World Cup as India eased to victory in Group 2.
It may still prove to be too late, but India rediscovered their T20 batting template in the World Cup with a 66-run win against Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday evening. Their highest opening partnership in a T20 World Cup game, powerful hitting in the death overs and clinical bowling ensuring that.
When India’s top order fires, the team is usually in a good space. KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma, back as opener, were certainly in the mood. With no luck at the toss, India’s much anticipated face-off against Afghanistan spinners began first ball. In fact, the first 12 balls they faced were all spin. But no more in the first six, because Rahul and Sharma scored 23 runs in those two overs. Afghanistan surprisingly dropped Mujeeb Ur Rahman and instead went with left-arm slow Sharafuddin Ashraf. But a cheeky lap by Sharma and a couple of lofted hits over mid-on—a four and six by KL Rahul—all in the same over were enough to see the youngster out of the attack.
The rest of the powerplay was all seam. The scrap in the previous two matches was gone once Sharma took the onus to launch into the Afghanistan bowling. He got 17 runs of the fifth over bowled by Naveen-ul-Haq, who bowls with an action similar to Jasprit Bumrah but not with the same venom. Naveen tried to bowl good lengths that have worked at Abu Dhabi in the games so far, but was a fraction full. That was all Sharma needed to cart him around the ground for two fours and a six. A mighty six over long-off was a range-hitting strike, Sharma style. India’s vice-captain was up and running, and at 53/0 it was easily India’s most productive powerplay of the tournament.
Rashid Khan’s first sighting with the ball came in the eighth over, but without control from the other end, he leaked 16 runs in his first two overs. The Indian openers found a way to see him off though; Sharma frequently targeted the V behind the wicket with sweeps and a reverse sweep to Khan’s googly.
With runs flowing from Sharma’s blade, by the time he reached 50 in the 12th over, a relatively smaller contingent of Indian crowd that had assembled on the grass banks on their socially distanced seats at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium were swaying to Bollywood music. In the same over, the Rahul-Sharma partnership went past hundred with Rahul helping himself with a swivel six off his hip, of a directionless back-of-the-length delivery from Naveen.
Momentum is a big thing in T20 cricket, and the Indian openers had swung it to their side. So much so that when the world’s best spinner in the format, Rashid Khan, came on to bowl his second spell, Sharma hit him for two sixes. Once showing disdain, he stepped down the wicket to dispatch his tossed-up googly over the mid-wicket boundary. Afghanistan were finally able to break India’s opening stand on 140 when Sharma was dismissed for a 47-ball 74 (8x4, 3x6). But India had registered a major point, Khan ending with figures of 4-0-36-0. Rahul’s innings was equally impressive, his 69 comprising six fours and two sixes.
There was more. Rishabh Pant brought out his flying blade to strike two one-handed sixes in the 17th over by Gulbadin Naib and 200 looked on the cards. India finished with 10 more thanks to some powerful striking from Hardik Pandya. Standing deep in the crease and outside off-stump, he used his long reach to help himself to a quick-fire 35 off 13 balls (4 fours, 2 sixes). The Pant-Pandya unbeaten 63-run third-wicket partnership came off only 21 balls.
Before this match, Afghanistan had scored at the quickest pace in the powerplay and their openers came out swinging again. But Mohammed Shazad and Hazratullah Zazai struggled to connect against Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami’s pace and both lost their wickets early. India had decided to fill as many blanks from the first two games, another one of which was giving Pandya an over to bowl in the powerplay.
Ravichandran Ashwin, not picked for the first two losses against Pakistan and New Zealand and playing his first T20 match after July 2017, made a successful return, bowling in the middle overs for figures of 4-0-14-2. Sensing an opportunity to win big and boost their run-rate, India reintroduced Bumrah but the experienced Nabi, aware of the larger picture, played him out. At the other end, Karim Janat, who hadn’t had much to do with the ball, was able to strike a few boundaries and their 57-run sixth wicket stand offered some resistance.
Shardul Thakur, who came in after a revision to the Indian squad, did not have the best of days again, giving away 31 runs in his three overs. Shami finished India’s highest wicket taker with three wickets on a day which proved to be India’s brightest of their World Cup campaign, with two matches against Associates Scotland and Namibia to come.
