On Wednesday, November 3, at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi, Virat Kohli lead Indian Cricket Team beat Afghanistani counterpart by 66 runs in their third match of the Super 12 round of the T20 World Cup.
After being called to bat first, India created a big 210-2 in 20 overs, thanks to brilliant half-centuries from openers Rohit Sharma (74) and KL Rahul (69). Afghanistan lost early wickets in response and was limited to 144-7, thanks to Mohammed Shami and R Ashwin’s merciless bowling.
Despite India’s comfortable victory, Sehar Shinwari, a Pakistani actor, was not thrilled with the Indian squad’s win and accused the BCCI of ‘rigging’ the India-Afghanistan match.
Appreciating India’s performance in the game, Indian commentator and former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra tweeted,
This is how it is done. India played like India. 👏👏 #T20WorldCup #IndvAfg
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) November 3, 2021
To which Pakistan movie star Sehar Shinwari responded,
BCCI bought a good match 👍 https://t.co/2SWhLRbAig
— Sehar Shinwari (@SeharShinwari) November 3, 2021
Aakash Chopra finally had the last laugh, coming up with an amazing comeback and slamming the actor.
Chopra responded to Shinwari perfectly by uploading a photo with the caption,
🙏 https://t.co/ezg5o98KOh pic.twitter.com/KnxQkIDjQi
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) November 3, 2021
On Friday, Virat Kohli and his team will face Scotland at the Dubai International Stadium. On Monday, they will face Namibia in the last game of the Super 12 stage of the current T20 World Cup at the same location.
Even if India wins both games, they will not be able to advance to the semi-finals until New Zealand loses one of their remaining two games. If Afghanistan defeats New Zealand and India wins their remaining matches, there might be a three-way tie on the points table, with Net Run Rate determining who finishes second in the group. Pakistan has already qualified for the semi-finals and is expected to top the group with four victories.
Despite facing two humiliating losses and one massive win, India is still in the running for a place in the semi-finals. They must win their remaining two games and pray for the outcomes of other teams to go their way.
Following India’s victory against Afghanistan, Indian captain Virat Kohli remarked during the post-match presentation,
“Much better wicket to be fair. We spoke about the fact that in the other games, if we just had two overs of free-flowing batting, then that sends a message to the opposition that we are going to put you under the pump. When we do that, we know how we can play. Sometimes, you do fall to the pressure and have to accept that. T20 cricket is a very instinctive game, in batting, bowling and decision-making. We do make decisions on the go. Top three is mostly settled unless situations like today when the openers batted all the way through and the power-hitters were ready.”
He further added,
“We don’t always decide early to go hard, but we do back ourselves and when we do get going, we know what we can do. Well, yes that is the plan (to keep playing this way) but as I said, sometimes you just give in to the pressure. The other teams bowled really well to us. Yes, it (net run rate) was to be honest. We are always positive, and so were thinking about it. The return of Ash (is the biggest positive), we saw him doing well in the IPL and when he does this, we get control in the middle overs. That’s what I’m most pleased about (today).”
Rohit Sharma, who was named Man of the Match for his ferocious batting display, lavished compliments on his fellow opener KL Rahul, claiming that his batting was exceptional. Rohit also stated that he is willing to do everything the team needed in order to win games.
After the match, Rohit said,
“We wanted to get off to a good start which didn’t happen in the first two games. There was a conscious effort to lay a good platform for the other batters to express themselves later. Exceptional batting from KL as well. Looking at the trend, they’ve batted first in all their games. We were looking to field first, but it was a good pitch to bat on. A good start and a respectable total were very important from our side. We knew run rate could come into play and we wanted to win by a good margin, glad that we did that. Whatever the team requires, I’ll try to do that. Today the need was for a quick start, normally I try to assess early on but today I had to play a bit differently.”