ICC World Cup 2023 : Match No. 9
India vs Afghanistan
Date: 11th October 2023 : 14.00 Hrs. IST
Venue: Arun Jaitley Cricket Stadium, Delhi
Beautiful sunny afternoon in Arun Jaitley Cricket Stadium, Delhi.
India has a change in their team, Shardul Thakur is replacing Ravindra Ashwin in this match. It’s a good batting pitch. At a later stage latter it may help spinners a bit. Though the ground is full of runs. The boundary is smaller, so more sixes can be seen by both teams.
Afghanistan won the toss and elected to bat first.
Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Siraj started to test the Afghan batting line up. On the one hand, Bumrah has extra ordinary consistency in his bowling with his unique bowling action. On the other hand, Mohammad Siraj has some extremely impressive records in ODIs. Shardul Thakur will join them to strengthen the bowling department.
Bumrah sent opener Ibrahim 22(28) to the pavilion when Afghanistan was 32/1 were 6.4 overs. Next was to go the other opener and wicket keeper batsman Gurbaz, who was sent back by Hardik Pandya on 21 (28 balls), when for Afghanistan was 63 in 12.4overs. Though in the process, Gurbaz has opened his hands by sending Shardul Thakur’s ball over the fence long on for a beautiful SIX.
At the same score of 63, now it was the turn of Shardul Thakur to strike and send Rahmat back to the pavilion on 16 off 22 balls when score of Afghanistan was 63/3.
Now, at number 5, Azmatullah Omarzai has come to build a partnership with Hashmatullah Shahidi.
After the initial 3 wickets, both the batsmen, Hashmatullah and Azmatullah added 121 runs for the 4th wicket partnership. Azamatullah was bowled out in the 6th over by Hardik Pandya for 62 off 69 balls. In the process, he hit 2 fours and 4 sixes. Afghanistan’s fourth wicket went at 184 in 34.3 overs. Afghanistan has scored these runs with a good scoring rate of 5.33 per over.
As I have already mentioned in the pre-match post yesterday (https://arvindksinha.in/india-vs-afghanistan/) that on paper this team is a good one, though it lacks consistency. Previous encounters between these two teams were also not single-sided matches. Today we can see that they have maintained their run rate above 5 runs per over and in the overs 20-30 & 30-40, they even accelerated it to above 6 runs per over.
In 43rd over Kuldeep Yadav gave breakthrough by sending Hashmatullah Shahidi on 80 (88 balls), at the total score of 225/5. Shahidi was playing very confidently. Kuldeep Yadav was economical and once again proved himself by his impressive bowling figures (10-0-40-1).
Nazibullah Zadran was next to go on 2 runs (8 balls), Hardik Pandya was the bowler and the fielder was none else but Virat Kohali at sweeper cover. On the last ball of the same over, Bumrah trapped Mohammad Nabi in front of the wicket and he was LBW on 19 (27 balls). Afghanistan were 235/7 in 45 overs.
Rashid Khan has quickly scored 16 runs off 12 balls before caught by Kuldeep Yadav on Bumrah, at the total of 261/8 after 48.1 overs. Jasprit Bumrah took four wickets was very impressive. His figure was 10-0-39-4.
Finally, Afghanistan has posted a good total ( 272/8) on the board and gave 273 runs target to India.
Now Indian innings:
India started its 273 run chase…
It was not only the flow of runs… But, flow of records by Indian Skipper Rohit Sharma.
He has completed 1000 runs in World Cup matches and his fastest 1000 runs, a record shared with David Warner.
He owns the record of maximum sixes, by passing the 553 sixes marks of Chris Gayle.
Scored the maximum hundred in the World Cup (7) in only 19 matches, by passing Sachin Tendulkar’s 6 hundred.
Fastest Century in the World Cup by an Indian in 63 balls, the record was on the name of Kapil Dev at 72 balls.
Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan on a 150 runs opening partnership and it was Ishan Kishan to go first on 47 off 47 balls when India was 156/1 and bowler was the most experienced bowler of Afghanistan, Rashid Khan.
Rashid Khan strikes again in his second spell and beautiful inning of Rohit Sharma came to an end. Rohit Sharma has scored brilliant 131 runs on 84 balls and score of India was 205/2 in 25.4 overs.
Shreyas Iyer came to crease to replace his skipper Rohit Sharma.
Finally, Delhi’s Chiku Virat Kohali has completed his fifty on 55 balls and with Shreyas Iyer has finished the job, left by their skipper few overs back. India has won the match by 8 wickets in just 35 overs and ensured improvement in NRR.
Now India is at 2nd position in the table with +1.50 NRR
Player of the Match : Rohit Sharma
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