Former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar on Thursday was full of praise for India's opening pair of KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma who scripted a record-breaking stand during their 66-run win against Afghanistan in the Group 2 match of the Super 12 stage of the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
The two lit up the venue with their exemplary display of power-hitting as they put up a 140-run stand, the highest ever for India for any wicket in the T20 World Cup and fourth highest opening stand in the T20Is for the Men in Blue. Rohit and Rahul scored 74 and 69 respectively to help India register a total of 210 for two. Afghanistan failed to get their chase off to a good start and lost wickets at regular interval before being restricted to 144 for seven.
Talking about the game, Sachin felt that Afghanistan got off to a wrong start in the game after starting with spinners on the track that would have aided the pacers given the presence of grass.
"Today's match was a big one for team India and we badly needed that. The way Rohit and Rahul batted was brilliant. Afghanistan got it wrong from the starting, as they started with the spinners. Usually, you can start with the spinners but in today's game, there was grass on the wicket's surface. I would say that seamers would have worked better in that situation," said Tendulkar in his Facebook video.
{{/usCountry}}"Today's match was a big one for team India and we badly needed that. The way Rohit and Rahul batted was brilliant. Afghanistan got it wrong from the starting, as they started with the spinners. Usually, you can start with the spinners but in today's game, there was grass on the wicket's surface. I would say that seamers would have worked better in that situation," said Tendulkar in his Facebook video.
{{/usCountry}}Sachin then talked about the partnership between Rahul and Rohit and what impressed him the most about their batting.
"The best thing I found about Rohit today is that the way he played the inside out to off-spinner Nabi. Rohit's experience helped him in this situation and he played some good shots, so as with KL Rahul, very calm and composed and even played some exquisite shots," he said.
"The running between the wickets of the opening pair was really impressive. Usually while scoring boundaries during the powerplay, the batters miss singles and doubles. But that was not the case today and the running was also equally aggressive," he added.
Afghanistan made 47 for the loss of two wickets at the end of the powerplay. Indian bowlers made further inroads dismissing Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Gulbadin Naib. Ravichandran Ashwin then dismissed Najibullah Zadran in the 11th over while Mohammed Shami sent back Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan in the penultimate over.
Shami finished with three wickets, while Ashwin picked two in his comeback game.
India will next face Scotland on Friday in Dubai.