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Team India began their Super Eight campaign in spectacular fashion, securing a convincing 47-run victory over Afghanistan in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 at the Kensington Oval on Thursday, 20 June.
After posting a target of 182 runs, the men in blue rode on scintillating bowling performance to bundle out the Afghanis for 134 runs.
Afghanistan's chase got off to a rocky start with three early setbacks. Jasprit Bumrah struck first in just the 2nd over, dismissing Rahamanullah Gurbaz. Then, Axar Patel removed Ibrahim Zardan in the 4th over, caught by skipper Rohit Sharma after scoring 8 runs off 11 balls. Bumrah returned to claim his second victim, Hazratullah Zazai, on the first ball of the 5th over.
Kuldeep Yadav picked up his second wicket by dismissing Mohammad Nabi in the 17th over. Arshdeep Singh followed with back-to-back strikes in the 18th over, removing Rashid Khan and Naveen-ul-Haq.
With Afghanistan needing 56 runs from the final over, they were bundled out as Arshdeep Singh claimed the final wicket. The Rashid Khan-led side fell short by 47 runs in their chase.
In the first innings, Suryakumar Yadav combined attacking shots with immaculate timing to make an impressive 53 off 28 balls as India posted a competitive 181/8 in 20 overs.
Captain Rashid Khan and left-arm pacer Fazalhaq Farooqi took three wickets each for Afghanistan.
With the ball holding onto the pitch, it meant the deliveries weren’t coming nicely on to the bat. Rohit Sharma was kept quiet by Farooqi despite getting a streaky four off him. He also survived an lbw appeal off Farooqi on review, as replays showed that the ball had pitched outside leg-stump.
Farooqi struck in the third over when Rohit tried to take on his off-cutter holding off the pitch, but miscued off the toe-end to mid-on. Rishabh Pant took the attack to Afghanistan by stylishly flicking Farooqi for four, followed by reverse-sweeping, slog-sweeping (dropped by Naveen-ul-Haq on 11) and driving through cover to take three fours off Mohammed Nabi in the final over of Power-play, which yielded 13 runs.
Suryakumar kept India going with his variety of sweeps fetching him three boundaries, even as Rashid trapped Shivam Dube lbw with a quicker leg-break which went past his attempted jab, with the review showing it hit flap of pad first in front of off-stump.
Suryakumar left everyone in awe by moving across and whipping a low full toss from Azmatullah Omarzai for four, followed by driving him through mid-off for another boundary. With Pandya timing his drives for boundaries, Suryakumar proceeded to smack a drive from Omarzai down the ground for six.
Pandya smacked Naveen for a 98-m six clubbed over the terrace of the stadium, before holing out to deep point off the pacer. India’s plans for a big finish were given another big dent when Ravindra Jadeja uppercut to short third man and become Farooqi’s third scalp. Axar picked his gaps well to take two boundaries off Naveen and take India past 180.
With inputs from IANS.
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