Surya and Bumrah star as India triumph against Afghanistan

Barbados: India faced Afghanistan in their first match of the Super 8 stage at the Kensington Oval in Barbados. Both the teams were looking to start their campaign on a high note as with each team only playing 3 games to determine who goes through to the semi-finals, every match from this stage is very important. India won the toss and decided to bat first.

The Rohit-Kohli partnership yet again failed to deliver as the Indian skipper lost his wicket to the tournament’s leading wicket-taker, Fazalhaq Farooqi. Rishabh Pant came in at 3 and alongside Kohli formed a decent partnership of 43 runs. However, Rashid Khan broke the stand by taking Pant’s wicket in the seventh over.

Virat Kohli continued his bad form in the T20 World Cup as he too got dismissed by Rashid for 24 runs in as many balls. The Afghanistan skipper took his third wicket in the form of Shivam Dube to leave India reeling at 90/4 in 10.5 overs. At one point, it looked as if India would barely cross the 150-run mark, however the partnership between Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya changed the whole scenario.

After taking his time, Surya started smashing the Afghanistan bowlers around the park. He hit 5 boundaries along with 3 sixes to score his second half-century of the tournament and easily took India above the total of 150. Pandya also gave his support and formed a great partnership with him. Surya was dismissed by Farooqi on 53 while Pandya lost his wicket in the next over on 32. Some good shots by Axar Patel in the last couple of overs took India to a respectable total of 181/8 in 20 overs.

In reply, the Afghanistan batting lineup struggled against the quality Indian bowling attack from the get-go. Jasprit Bumrah was yet again the star bowler for India dismissing both the Afghanistan openers. Axar Patel also chipped in with the wicket of Ibrahim Zadran. Gulbadin Naib and Azmatullah Omarzai tried to steady Afghanistan’s sinking ship with a good partnership, but both lost their wickets on 17 and 26 respectively. The returning Kuldeep Yadav also bagged 2 wickets to break Afghanistan’s backbone.

Bumrah took his third wicket in the form of Najibullah Zadran and another three wickets were taken by Arshdeep Singh as India bowled out Afghanistan on 134 to comprehensively win the match by 47 runs. Bumrah was again the best bowler for India taking 3 wickets and only giving away 7 runs in his 4 overs. With this win, India started their Super 8 campaign on a highly positive note and they will be facing Bangladesh next on Saturday.

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