Suryakumar Yadav's half-century and another exceptional performance from Jasprit Bumrah with the ball powered India to an easy victory over Afghanistan in the Super 8 opener of both the teams at the T20 World Cup 2024 in Bridgetown, Barbados. (Scorecard | As It Happened)
After Yadav's blazing 28-ball 53 had taken India to 181/8 in 20 overs, it was always going to be an uphill battle for the Afghans on a tricky pitch at the Kensington Oval. Ultimately, Afghanistan were bowled out for just 134 falling 47 runs short with Bumrah standing out with a mind boggling spell of four for seven.
India also tried Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja in the match and the duo had a good outing which was another big boost for the Men In Blue.
Wickets kept falling for Afghanistan right from the second over when Jasprit Bumrah removed Rahmanullah Gurbaz caught behind. Axar Patel's early introduction also paid dividends as the left-arm spinner got rid of Ibrahim Zadran in the fourth over of the chase. In the next over, the other opener Hazratullah Zazai also fell to Bumrah's slower ball and Afghanistan ended up with just 35/3 in the powerplay.
A 44-run stand for the fourth wicket between Gulbadin Naib and Azmatullah Omarzai did raise Afghanistan's hopes but the duo was dismissed in successive overs and that almost sealed the game in India's favour.
Required rate kept going up and wickets went on falling. Arshdeep Singh took the last three wickets to clean up the tail and hand India a 47-run win.
Earlier, skipper Rohit Sharma won the toss and decided to bat first.
The skipper himself could not do much as the in-form Fazalhaq Faaroqi got the prized wicket in the third over. Virat Kohli was then joined by Rishabh Pant who scored an entertaining 11-ball 20 before becoming the first of Afghanistan skipper Rashid Khan's three scalps.
Rashid then got the wickets of Kohli and Shivam Dube in quick succession to put India under pressure. However, none of it affected Suryakumar Yadav who used sweeps to great advantage negating the threat of Afghan spin duo of Rashid and Noor Ahmed.
On a sluggish pitch, it was Yadav's innings that pushed India's total way above par. Yadav was well assisted by Hardik Pandya who played a fine hand of 32 form 24 balls. Apart from Rashid, Farooqi also picked up three wickets for Afghanistan.
India now fly to Antigua to play Bangladesh on Saturday, June 22 while Afghanistan face another tough challenge against Australia the same day in St Vincent.
