India vs Afghanistan T20 World Cup 2021: Man of The Match, Post Match Presentation, Scorecard and Highlights

Led by a record opening partnership between stylish openers Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul India posted a mammoth 210/2 in 20 overs, India restricted Afghanistan to 144 for 7 to claim their first win in the showpiece event.

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Against Afghanistan, Indians finally put up a near-flawless effort to annihilate hapless Afghans. With this win, the Men In Blue kept hopes of making it to the playoffs alive and gave some moments to cheer to their billion-plus fans.

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With their net run-rate finally entering the positive bracket (+0.073), India would now hope that Afghanistan can recover from this drubbing and upset New Zealand, giving Virat Kohli’s men an outside chance to qualify for the semi-finals behind Pakistan who are set to top the group.

This was also the highest total in this edition of the T20 World Cup but one can only hope that it hasn’t come two matches too late.

Here are the post-match presentation highlights from the match:

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Player of the match: Rohit Sharma (74 off 47 balls):

(On attacking Afghanistan’s bowling from the start) The idea was to go after it and get off to a good start, which didn’t happen in the first two games and lay the platform for the others.

(On the partnership with KL Rahul) Exceptional batting from Rahul and that partnership was vital. We were prepared to field first, and it was a good pitch to bat on.

(On his approach for this game) Getting to a respectable total was important, and the NRR could come into play so we had to win by a good margin, so glad we got that. Today it was necessary to get off to a good start, and that’s not my natural game – I usually like to get in. So I made an effort to settle in, play cricketing shots, and put up a big total.

Losing Captain, Mohammed Nabi:

(On why he chose to bowl first) We usually bat first, we tried to chase due to the dew. Also, the wicket looked really good.

(On the dew factor) Yeah, there wasn’t much dew, but the wicket played really good. India batted really well and put us under pressure.

(Where his team lost the game) Not always, we try to rotate strike a bit too. Today we didn’t do well enough but we lost early wickets and that put us under pressure. Hopefully, we can win our last game.

Winning Captain, Virat Kohli:

(On the wicket and batting effort) 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 under the pressure and have to accept that.

(On the decisions the team makes during the matches) T20 cricket is a very instinctive game, in batting, bowling and decision-making. We do make decisions on the go. The top three is mostly settled unless situations like today when the openers batted all the way through and the power-hitters were ready. 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.

(On planning to keep playing this way) Well, yes that is the plan but as I said, sometimes you just give in to the pressure. The other teams bowled really well to us.

(On whether NRR was on the mind) Yes, it was, to be honest. We are always positive, and so we’re thinking about it.

(On the biggest positive from the game) The return of Ash. We saw him doing well in the IPL and when he does this, we get to control in the middle overs. That’s what I’m most pleased about (today).