World Cup 2019: Most Runs, Most Wickets (Updated) after IND vs AFG
India won a nerve-racking game Afghanistan by a margin of 11 runs in Match 27 of the ICC Cricket World Cup at Ageas Bowl, Southampton on June 22.
With the pitch looking very placid, India won the toss and chose to bat. India had a forced change with Mohammad Shami replacing the injured Bhuvneshwar Kumar. On the other hand, Afghanistan replaced Noor Ali Zadran and Dawlat Zadran in favour of Hazratullah Zazai and Aftab Alam.
As usual, Mujeeb Ur Rahman opened the bowling for Afghanistan. But, what was not expected was the fact that the pitch turned out to be completely opposite when compared with the reports. Mujeeb's very first ball held up a little and KL Rahul had to wait and play it out. This was a big sign of things to come. With the pitch providing a lot of assistance, Mujeeb continued to bowl consistent line and length. This paid off as Rohit Sharma fell victim to a carrom ball that just held its line in order to castle the stumps.
After that, skipper Virat Kohli joined Rahul in the middle and started to counter-attack the Afghanistan bowlers. However, a rush of blood moment meant that Rahul lost his wicket against the run of play. At this stage, Kohli and Vijay Shankar recognized the need for a partnership as another wicket would have put the team in trouble. Just like the previous dismissal, Shankar also had to make the walk back when Afghanistan wasn't posing any trouble.
This brought together two of India's best and most reliable players in ODI cricket as Dhoni walked in.
But, as usual, Dhoni started off slowly with him finding it difficult to rotate the strike. On the other end, Kohli carried on his merry way as the strike rate never went below 100. Unfortunately for India, Kohli was undone by a Nabi delivery which bounced more than what he expected to. With Kohli back in the hut, Afghanistan used their quality spinners to tie down Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav. The spinners bowled very few loose balls and the pressure paid off eventually as Dhoni stepped down the track and missed a leg-break from Rashid. Ikram Ali Khil did the rest and India had lost half their side for just 192 runs during the 45th over. To round off the inning, Afghanistan's seam bowlers used the slowness of the pitch to their advantage and restricted India to 224/8 after 50 overs.
With an average total on board, India had to pick early wickets inspite of the brittle nature of Afghanistan's batting line-up. India's opening bowlers, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami did the same with a fiery spell. Their excellence resulted in Hazratullah Zazai losing patience and as the old saying goes, "You miss and I hit" Shami castled the stumps. After that, skipper Gulbadin Naib and Rahmat Shah slowly built the inning. However, an ill-advised pull shot off Hardik Pandya brought about Naib's downfall. This meant that Rahmat and Hashmatullah Shahidi, two of Afghanistan's best batsmen had to take it deep into the inning.
They did the same and Afghanistan were milking singles until India brought back their strike bowler in Jasprit Bumrah. Bumrah bowled a fantastic double-wicket maiden in the 29th over to rock the Afghanistan side. The two quick wickets resulted in two new batsmen for Afghanistan in the form of Asghar Afghan and Mohammad Nabi. Nabi didn't get any support from Afghan as Afghanistan lost another wicket.
By then, India had stormed back into the game and Afghanistan were already staring down the barrel. But, Nabi and Najibullah didn't want to give up the game so early and fought on for a period of time. Eventually, Nabi notched up a brilliant fifty and Afghanistan needed 16 off the last over but a brilliant Shami hat-trick ended the game in India's favour.
Most Runs
Virat Kohli's delightful 67 off 63 balls took him into the Top 10 list for Most Runs in the World Cup.
Most Wickets
Yuzvendra Chahal bowled beautifully as he picked up two wickets to enter the Top 10 wicket-takers list. He is tied at the 10th spot with Imran Tahir. He is the only Indian in the Top 10 at the moment.
Also read – Most maiden overs in world cup
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