Agencies, Southampton
A brilliant spell by spinners, Afghanistan restricted India to a modest total of 224 runs in the World Cup match here at the Rose bowl on Saturday.
After opting to bat first, men in blue suffered an early loss as Rohit Sharma (1) was dismissed by Mujeeb Ur Rahman in 4.2 over, leaving India 7/1 in the fifth over.
Rohit Sharma’s dismissal brought skipper Kohli to the wicket where he added 57 runs with KL Rahul and also he scored his third consecutive World Cup fifty as India recovered from the shock of losing Rohit Sharma early.
Soon, the team face another blow, when they lost KL Rahul for 30 with the score on 64. Rahul top-edged a reverse-sweep into the hands of Hazratullah Zazai at short third man off the bowling of Mohammad Nabi.
Vijay Shankar (29) later joined Kohli and the duo added 58 runs, but before this partnership could have gone further, Shankar was lbw by Rahmat Shah in the 26.1 over.
However, from the other end, Kohli played handsomely and scored 67 off 62 balls decorated by 5 fours before falling to Mohammad Nabi. Till 30th over, India were on 135/4.
From there MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav played cautiously and added 57 runs for the fifth wicket. Their partnership journey came to an end in the same fashion as Kohli and Rahul partnership ended after adding 57 runs. In 44.3 over, Rashid Khan dismissed Dhoni on a score of 28 off 51 balls.
In the last five over, Hardik Pandya joined Jadhav who was going fine with his bat and was the second highest scorer after Kohli in the match. He scored 52 runs off 67 balls before falling to Gulbadin Naib in 49.5 over.
Pandya who known as the finisher, couldn’t do much in the game and was departed on a score of seven runs while Mohammad Shami score one run.
Kuldeep Yadav (1) and Jasprit Bumrah (1) remained unbeaten as India post a modest total of 224/8 in their stipulated 50 overs.
For Afghanistan, Mohammad Nabi and Gulbadin Naib took two wickets each while Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Aftab Alam, Rashid Khan and Rahmat Shah took one wicket each.