Abu Dhabi, Nov 3: A formidable India led by their stylish openers Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul finally put up a near-flawless performance to annihilate a hapless Afghanistan by 66 runs to stay afloat in the ICC T20 World Cup here on Wednesday.
It could well be a case of joining the party two games too late but a solid batting show to first score 210 for 2 and then bowl the disciplined lines to restrict Afghanistan to 144 for 7 kept their billion plus fans interested.
With their net run-rate finally entering the positive bracket (+0.073), India would now hope that Afghanistan can recover from this drubbing and upset New Zealand, giving Virat Kohli’s men an outside chance to qualify for the semi-finals behind Pakistan who are set to top the group.
On the day, India did everything that perhaps was expected of them against the big teams. Rohit brought his carefree elegance to the table while Rahul was classy in India’s imposing total.
Rohit (74 off 47 balls) and KL Rahul (69 off 48 balls) made mockery of Afghanistan’s inexperienced attack, putting up a record 140 runs for the opening stand. This was also the highest total in this T20 World Cup.
It couldn’t be denied that save Rashid Khan, who was taken to task by Rohit in his third over, the other Afghans were pedestrian at best, leaving Hardik Pandya (35* off 13 balls) and Rishabh Pant (27* off 13 balls) to feast in the death overs. The Pandya-Pant duo clobbered 63 runs in 3.3 overs to take the total beyond Afghanistan’s reach.
When India bowled, Ravichandran Ashwin, playing his first international game in six months and white ball international after four years, was too good for the Afghans.
Jasprit Bumrah (1/25) was steady as usual while Ravindra Jadeja (1/19) looked decent. Mohammed Shami got a bit of stick but picked wickets at regular intervals.
With no disrespect to India’s efforts, the gulf in bowling standards was evident in the disdainful manner that Rohit and Rahul treated the Afghan attack.
Hardik and Pant then added insult to the injury. The mid-130s speed of the pacers and lack of swing with not much pace off the track was an ideal recipe for disaster against the two Indian openers, who were smarting after back-to-back failures.
The 50 of the innings came in five overs but it was veteran pacer Hamid Hasan, who bowled the last over of the Powerplay to put a brief brake on the scoring during.
A total of 85 came off the first 10 overs with both openers looking solid.
By the time Rohit was out trying to smash Karim Janat over extra cover, he had got eight fours and three sixes. Rahul was also dismissed within another seven runs, being cleaned up by Gulbadin as he tried to shuffle towards off-stump.
