IND vs AFG ,Cricket World Cup 2023 Highlights: Rohit 131, Kohli shines with 50, India wins by 8 wicket

Rohit Sharma (Image)

Earlier in the game, Hashmatullah Shahidi won the toss and had no hesitation in batting first. The pitch did look great for batting but was a touch slower than the one in the last game. Once Jasprit Bumrah got the wicket of the charismatic Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmanullah Gurbaz tried his best to keep up the ante. Gurbaz fell soon and Afghanistan were 63/3 before skipper Shahidi and Azmatullah Omarzai stitched together a 121-run stand to get their innings back on track. However, in the second half of the innings, the Indian bowlers were able to pick up wickets at regular intervals and short spells from Jasprit Bumrah proved to be highly effective as he picked up 4 wickets. Apart from Shahidi and Omarzai, no one else was able to spend time on the crease and Afghanistan limped to 272. Coming to the chase, it went perfectly from start to finish for India as the skipper led from the front and they cruised through to victory.

Afghanistan tried their best but were completely outclassed by the Indians. Afghanistan had an under-par total on the board but the way in which they conceded runs in the opening 10 overs, took away that outside chance of a win from them as well. Fazalhaq Farooqi was surprisingly off his game and gave away a lot of boundaries and Mujeeb Ur Rahman was unable to control proceedings in the first Powerplay as well. Azmatullah Omarzai and Naveen-ul-Haq were decent but didn’t get any wickets either and it was their talisman, Rashid Khan who picked up both the wickets but on the whole, he too was fairly expensive. All in all yet another disappointing outing for Afghanistan and they will now look to bounce back in the next game.

As easy as you like from Rohit Sharma and Co., as they pick up their second victory of the campaign and get the much-needed boost going into their next clash against arch-rivals Pakistan. With 273 runs needed to win on what looked like a pristine batting surface, skipper Rohit Sharma came out all guns blazing and put the Afghan bowlers to the sword. He kept on finding the fence over after over and soon India were 94/0 in 10 overs with Ishan Kishan hardly getting any runs. Kishan did manage to get into the groove and the openers put on 156 runs for the first wicket as well before the southpaw got out. Rohit went on to score the fastest century by an Indian in World Cups and broke a couple of significant milestones as well on the way before getting out on 131. Rohit couldn’t finish off proceedings but an in-form Virat Kohli struck another half-century and along with Shreyas Iyer managed to end the game with 15 overs still remaining.