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Rohit’s 131 took him past Sachin Tendulkar for the most hundreds at the World Cup, as India made light work of a chase of 273
This is the highest run score between the two nations India and Afghanistan, 545
Naveen had enough of the crowd taunting him throughout the match; you could see everywhere he fielding he was really getting it from the crowd.
At some point, they talked and made up; they were both seen smiling and having a gala time together during and post-match.
Shreyas Iyer posts a decent 25 and stays till the end, but he did give this big six
Bumrah gets four solid wickets and we don’t expect anything less from him.
Outside edges Ibrahim Zadran and points to his temple, showing off his brains – Rashford celebration.
Gurbaaz and Zardan were actually decent to begin with; with someone like Bumrah and Siraj starting, it’s never easy, but they somehow put up a decent partnership, but obviously, that was broken by Bumrah.
Gurbaaz to this day is one of my favorite openers, he’s always fun to watch, and we know he’s one of the most reliable batsmen in the Afghan lineup. We all expected that the batting lineup was going to crash after the openers we back to the pavilion. But Hashmat and Azmat will be known for their middle-order stance for a very long time, I’m guessing they will show up a few more times in the future and put up a wall for Afghan batting.
Hashmatullah Shahidi + Azmatullah Omarzai both put up 121 (128)
Towards the back end, as both brought up half-centuries, Afghanistan was picking up boundaries at will and appeared primed for a total in excess of 300.
A half-century from Virat Kohli capped a near-perfect day for India as they eased to an eight-wicket win with 15 overs to spare after a disciplined performance with the ball had restricted Afghanistan to a below-par total despite half-centuries from Hashmatullah Shahidi and Azmatullah Omarzai.
Kohli’s innings was just spic and span, and he tonked the winning shot back down the ground, and India’s win was complete.
It’s his home ground and it’s his final one in front of his home crowd, these things get too emotional sometimes.
In Shubman Gill’s absence, Ishan Kishan kind of filled that role, making 47 (47); he started slowly while Rohit was slamming the other end; he took his time and did well eventually to finish running a ball score.
Rohit Sharma was on fire!
You can’t beat this level of finesse and ease of scoring runs. Every batsman I’ve seen always bat with a certain DRIVE, like they always want to be on top or win, but Rohit is a different beast! He’s a big grizzly bear who doesn’t care about records but he just comes in and eases into the innings and tonks the ball around.
India vs Afghanistan was one of the closer encounters of the 2019 World Cup, but this was far from it. I think Rohit planned for this early.
Rohit, who went past Sachin Tendulkar for most hundreds at the ODI World Cup, took the attack to all Afghanistan bowlers, turning a potentially tricky chase of 273 into a net run rate-boosting cakewalk.
Coming in 63 balls, it was the fastest by an Indian at an ODI World Cup; that Rohit was the one that achieved that record was not in the least surprising.He also has a WC average for 71
Rohit missed out badly against Australia. Today, Rohit would ensure there was to be no repeat of that. Rohit’s first boundary followed a sedate first couple of overs, and the floodgates opened.
There was always the talk about Rohit not performing in the big stage and ICC tournaments.
The T20 2022 World Cup wasn’t his series by miles (His T20 2022 WC were – 2 vs Ban, 4 vs Pak, 15 vs Zim, 15 vs SA, 27 vs Eng, 53 vs Neth), so maybe it has to do with the format and just like the 2019 World Cup, he started to open up this season.
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