Dubai 8th September : The team is out of the competition, India signed off from Asia Cup 2022 on a high with an utter thrashing of 101 runs of Afghanistan in their last Super Four match at the Dubai International Stadium on Thursday.In an unfinished rubber, the talismanic batter Virat Kohli provided Indian fans plenty of motives to be content.
When captain Rohit Sharma was resting, Kohli was promoted to start the bat.The next thing that happened was one that nobody could have imagined and left Kohli himself awestruck.
Kohli ended his streak of not making 100 runs in cricket international for 1020 days with an incredible career-best 122 runs in just 61 balls that were that was laced with 12 sixes and four fours at a strike-rate of 200.
After a rousing first game of just 119 runs off 76 balls with the stand-in captain KL Rahul taking 65 of these runs, Kohli accelerated amazingly from 59 off 40 balls to score the next 63 runs using just 21 balls, resulting in an unbroken 71st century in international cricket.In the wake of Kohli’s century India achieved a staggering 212/2.
Then, Bhuvneshwar’s senior pacer’s streak of 5/4, with lots of swing and hitting the right spots consistently, took down the Afghanistan challenge, ultimately limiting the Afghans to 111/8 in 20 overs.
It was a day to be forgotten for Afghanistan who entered the game just 24 hours after their one-wicket loss to Pakistan in Sharjah.They dropped wickets that included of Kohli in the 28th.
looked tired and were not at their best.
After the first two overs showed nothing but limits, India got going as Rahul and Kohli hit fours each the leg side of Fazalhaq Farooqui.
Rahul followed by pulling Mujeeb Ur Rahman in the backward square leg, before cutting and removing Fareed Ahmed to score an unbeaten pair of fours.
Kohli was in a frenzied mode after slaying Mujeeb for fours across the ground, and then sweeping through square leg backwards and finishing the powerplay with an slam through the ground.
Post-power-play, Rahul pulled Rashid Khan for six over the deep mid-wicket.Kohli was dropped on 28 after Ibrahim Zadran parried the ball after a misshit on Mohammad Nabi’s ball over the boundary line for six more.
Kohli seemed in his best form, with an inside-out loft over extra cover being the highlight to get his fifty in 32 balls.The next ball, Rahul got his fifty in 36 balls with loft and pull, bringing four consecutive fours off Nabi.
However, in the hope of going large, Rahul pulled on a cross-seam ball from Ahmed and the top edge flew to long-on.Suryakumar Yadav flicked nonchalantly over the fine leg to score six with the first ball.
However, on the subsequent ball he cut his stumps Ahmed.
Kohli kept impressing in the face of spin in his knock, lifting Rashid over the deep mid-wicket for six.He then increased the ante with consecutive flicks of fours off Ahmad and hit a pair of fours off off-side from Farooqui.
After hammering Ahmed to the track in the 19th over Kohli scored his maiden T20I century in 53 balls with the pull of a six over deep mid-wicket to score six.Farooqui was brought in for another crushing in the last over.Kohli hit him with sixes over the long-off and deep mid-wicket before slicing the cover with a four to get 18 runs off the last over.
His unbeaten 122, which was a mixture of iconic and hard-hitting cricket shots was scored at a strike rate of 200 which is the highest score scored by an Indian male batter in T20Is.Kohli is now joined by the former Australia captain Ricky Ponting in scoring 71 international centuries, which is the second-highest in the record set by India the batting legend Sachin Tendulkar, who scored 100.
When he hit the ball, Bhuvneshwar proved right on the right track from the beginning by bending the ball back in to catch Hazratullah Zazai in the lbw.After two balls, he produced an absolute Jaffa that smashed Rahmanullah Gurbaz’s stumps and send the openers to the pavilion in the opening over.
In a flurry of swings and a constant pitch in the right places, Bhuvneshwar was making Afghanistan batters dance to his songs.Karim Janat gave a thick edge to his first fall on an outswinger.
Najibullah Zadran was unable to flick and was lbw trapped by an inswinger.
After Arshdeep Singh had trapped Nabi with a lbw, Bhuvneshwar completed his five-wicket haul by playing Azmatullah Omarzai snatch an knuckle ball straight for cover.
Rashid hit a couple of boundaries before taking a holing in the middle off Deepak Hooda’s initial ball.
Zadran struck a few boundaries as Mujeeb was playing the long-handle against Ravichandran Ashwin.
Even though Mujeeb eventually was beaten by Ashwin, Zadran got his fifty with sixes off Dinesh Karthik in the final over.However, by that point the result was already known.
Brief Scores: India 212/2 in 20 overs (Virat Kohli 122 not out, KL Rahul 62; Fareed Malik 2/57) beat Afghanistan 111/8 in 20 overs (Ibrahim Zadran 64 not out, Mujeeb Ur Rahman 18; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 5/4, Deepak Hooda 1/3) by 101 runs
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