India-Afghanistan: An Unexpected Nail-biter

Will Rishabh Pant, who made it to the Indian squad as the replacement for an injured Shikhar Dhawan who was ruled out of the ICC World Cup, make it to the playing 11 if India experiment against Afghanistan? That was the big question before the team for the day was declared. As it turned out, neither Vijay Shankar nor Kedar Jadhav was omitted and Pant didn’t find a place. The predictable inclusion was that of Mohammed Shami, who made it to the playing 11 in place of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has to sit out for a while, also because of an injury.

The Men in Blue, who had seemed invincible against far tougher opponents, dug a deep hole for themselves against their unfancied opponents at The Rose Bowl in Southampton. They eventually managed to avoid embarrassment and loss of points with an 11-run win. A handful of Afghanistan flags fluttered in the gentle wind as the team fought hard to achieve a creditable result few would have expected.

This was India’s 50th win in the World Cup, and it almost didn’t happen. The batting, apart from Virat Kohli’s fluent 63-ball 67, was uninspired. Incidentally, Kohli became the second Indian skipper after Mohammad Azharuddin to hit three consecutive World Cup fifties. Azhar had achieved this feat in the 1992 World Cup.

Most Afghan bowlers were accurate and economical, including Rashid Khan who had been hammered for 110 runs in his nine wicketless overs against England. Indian batsmen weren't allowed to cut loose and score freely, which reflected in the final score.

It all started after a drifting beauty from Mujeeb Ur Rahman went through the defence of Rohit Sharma, clipping the top of his off stump. At that time, Sharma had scored one off 10 deliveries. KL Rahul made 30, taking 53 balls to get there. Vijay Shankar scored 29 runs off 41 deliveries.

MS Dhoni looked distinctly scrappy, taking 52 deliveries to make 28. Not only was he responsible for slowing down the scoring rate, he also got out when he was expected to accelerate. Kedar Jadhav’s uncharacteristically slow 68-ball 52 took the team past the 200-run mark; yet, 224 for 8 was not the kind of target India were expected to set.

Afghanistan can be at their best against strong teams when their batsmen are faced with a small target that they can attempt to surpass. Very much in the game until the last couple of overs, thanks to Mohammed Nabi’s impressive 55-ball 52, they were able to make a match of it because 225 didn’t seem distant for the most part. For a long time, they were required to get about a run a ball, which might have materialised if they had wickets in hand. Eventually, a Mohammed Shami hat-trick in the 50th over ended their last moment of hope, resulting in the Indian victory.

While Indian batting was far below its best, the bowlers showed discipline when they were called upon to deliver. Kohli didn’t use Jadhav and Shankar, his part-time options, but Hardik Pandya bowled his ten overs with reasonable accuracy and also picked up a couple of wickets. Jasprit Bumrah’s double strike in the 29th over when Afghanistan had the edge with the score reading 106 for 2 was a turning point that put the batting team on the back foot.

Spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav didn’t allow the batsmen to break free, with the former picking up two wickets as well. The icing on the cake was Shami’s hat-trick, the second by an Indian in the World Cup after Chetan Sharma’s first hat-trick in the history of the tournament against New Zealand in 1987.

Before the game began, cricket lovers who believe in the power of reasoning would have said that India will sail to an easy victory. Afghanistan’s spirited performance was a reminder that the best of teams suffer setbacks on a bad day – which India almost did.

Indian bowlers restricted the opposition to win the match for their team. Disappointing was the manner in which most batsmen went about their task, which led to a modest match-winning score against the weakest team in the tournament. Strong teams are likely to go past such targets with a fair degree of ease, and India will face a few of them soon.