{"id":154845,"date":"2021-11-03T21:24:40","date_gmt":"2021-11-03T22:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=154845"},"modified":"2021-11-04T05:05:09","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T05:05:09","slug":"brutal-stand-revives-indias-world-cup-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=154845","title":{"rendered":"Brutal stand revives India's World Cup chances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul combined for a blistering 140-run opening stand as India racked up the highest score in this year\u2019s T20 World Cup and finally won its first game, beating Afghanistan by 66 runs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rohit smashed 74 off 47 balls and Rahul made 69 off 48 deliveries in India\u2019s mammoth total of 2\/210 after captain Virat Kohli lost his third successive toss and was asked to bat first.<\/p>\n

Hardik Pandya (35 not out) and Rishabh Pant (27 not out) provided a brisk finish by hammering 65 runs in the last four overs as Afghanistan\u2019s premier bowler Rashid Khan returned with rare unimpressive figures of 0-36.<\/p>\n

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Afghanistan never looked likely to come close before finishing on 144-7 to lose its second game in four matches. Ravichandran Ashwin, playing his first game of the tournament, picked up 2-14 and buckled Afghanistan in the middle overs with fellow spinner Ravindra Jadeja.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch better wicket as well,\u201d Kohli said. \u201cIn the other two games as well, if we just had two overs of that free-flowing batting capability, that could have sent the message to the opposition that we\u2019ve put them under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karim Janat, who reached 1,000 runs in T20 internationals, remained unbeaten on 42 off 22 balls to narrow the margin of defeat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Despite the big win, India\u2019s slim chance to progress into the semifinals depends on whether it can beat Scotland and Namibia by big margins while other results also go in its favor.<\/p>\n

\u201cNet run-rate was on the back of our mind,\u201d Kohli said. \u201cWe spoke in the team meeting that we have to focus on the chance we have (to qualify for the semifinals) and stay positive and hunt that chance down.\u201d<\/p>\n

India lost to archrival Pakistan by 10 wickets and to New Zealand by eight wickets before its top order batsmen finally came good in the third Group 2 game.<\/p>\n

Rohit\u2019s elevation back as an opener after being demoted in the last game against New Zealand paid off as Afghanistan's seamers and spinners couldn\u2019t stem the flow of runs.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan\u2019s decision to prefer Sharafuddin Ahmed ahead of in-form spinner Mujeeb-ur-Rahman didn't bear fruit as the leftarm spinner was taken out of the attack after conceding 25 runs with the new ball.<\/p>\n

Rohit hit eight fours and three sixes and Rahul smashed six fours and two sixes before both fell in the space of seven runs. Rohit holed out to extra cover in the 15th over and Rahul was beaten by Gulbadin Naib\u2019s slow yorker while attempting a scoop against the right-arm seamer.<\/p>\n

But Pandya and Pant then punished Afghanistan seamers Naveen-ul-Haq (0-59) and Hamid Hassan (0-34) in the death overs to post the first score above 200 runs in the tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to bat second because of the dew, and the wicket looked really good for batting,\u201d Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi said. \u201cIn the end there wasn\u2019t that much dew, but India batted well on this pitch and put our bowlers under pressure. We didn\u2019t rotate strike well in the middle (overs), threw away our wickets and got under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul combined for a blistering 140-run opening stand as India racked up the highest score in this year\u2019s T20 World Cup […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154845"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154845"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154847,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154845\/revisions\/154847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}