India, the host of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, won their first match last night. They beat Afghanistan with a massive margin. With this victory, India’s hopes of reaching the semi-finals are still alive. India lost their first two matches against Pakistan and New Zealand. The match against Afghanistan is a must-win match for India to stay in this tournament. However, they completed their job last night successfully.
Match Report
At Sheikh Zayed Stadium, India met Afghanistan in a very crucial match. Afghan skipper Mohammad Nabi won the toss and elected to bowl first. Both India and Afghanistan made some changes to the playing XI. Afghanistan replaced Mohammad Mujib with Sharafuddin Ashraf. On the other side, India dropper Ishan Kishan for pacer Shardul Thakur.
However, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul have had a great start in the game against Afghanistan. They made a brilliant partnership on the pitch. Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul added 140 runs together. After scoring 74 runs from 47 balls, Rohit lost his wicket to Karim Janat. He hit eight boundaries and three over boundaries. On the other side, KL Rahul also played a very aggressive inning as well. He scored 69 runs from 48 balls before losing the wicket. Furthermore, Rishab Pant and Hardik Pandya batted extremely well. Hardik Pandya picked up 35 runs in just 13 balls. He hit four boundaries and two over boundaries. His partner Rishab Pant also scored some quick runs. He added 27 runs from 13 balls. Depending on those four batsmen, India scored 210 runs in 20 over.
Afghan captain Mohammad Nabi used seven bowlers against India. Among them, only Karim Janat and Gulbadin Naib got one wicket for each. The other five were not good enough in this clash.
Chasing 210 runs, Afghan batsmen lost their wickets very quickly. Afghanistan lost their first wicket in the 3rd over. Opener Shehzad had to go back to the pavilion with zero runs. However, Karim Janat scored the highest individual runs for Afghanistan. He picked up 35 runs from 32 balls. On the other hand, skipper Mohammad Nabi scored the second-highest run for Afghanistan. No other batsmen of Afghanistan scored a notable run for the team. As a result, Afghanistan 144 runs in 20 runs.