Bridgetown (Barbados), June 20 2024-
Fast bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh picked three-wicket hauls each as India maintained their unbeaten run in the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup with a clinical 47-run win over Afghanistan in their first Super Eight match at the Kensington Oval here on Thursday.
With the pitch being damp and slow, Suryakumar Yadav proved to be the difference by hitting a 28-ball 53, laced with five fours and three sixes at a strike-rate of 189, and being mighty effective with his sweep shots to take India to a strong 181/8.
His 60-run stand with Hardik Pandya (32) and a late cameo of 12 from Axar Patel helped India raise the tempo as 56 runs came in the last five overs.
In reply, Bumrah took 3-7, including bowling 20 dot balls, while Arshdeep, despite being occasionally wayward, took 3-36 to bowl out Afghanistan for 134.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz got Afghanistan’s chase off to a flying start by carting Arshdeep for four and six in the opening over. But the big-hitting Gurbaz was foxed by a cutter from Bumrah in looking to hit over cover and gave an outside edge behind to keeper.
Ibrahim Zadran slashed to Virat Kohli at point, but he dropped a simple catch off Arshdeep’s bowling. But Axar struck quickly as Zadran didn’t get any elevation and hit straight to extra cover. Bumrah came back with an off-cutter which gripped off the pitch and took a leading edge off Hazratullah Zazai’s bat to backward point.
The triple strikes from India meant Afghanistan’s required run rate ballooned, despite Azmatullah Omarzai and Gulbadin Naib hitting five boundaries between themselves till the halfway mark.
But after the drinks break, Kuldeep broke the 44-run stand by having Naib miscue high in the air to the keeper and was followed by Ravindra Jadeja having Omarzai holing out to long-on. From there on, the result was a foregone conclusion as Bumrah and Arshdeep ended up with three-fers, while Kuldeep had a two-wicket haul on his T20 World Cup debut in a comfortable win for India.
Brief scores:
India 181/8 in 20 overs (Suryakumar Yadav 53, Hardik Pandya 32; Rashid Khan 3-26, Fazalhaq Farooqi 3-33) beat Afghanistan 134 all out in 20 overs (Azmatullah Omarzai 26; Jasprit Bumrah 3-7, Arshdeep Singh 3-36) by 47 runs (Agency)
