After a challenging day’s work, here was a sudden downpour that lasted for about an hour on the night of Monday with varying intensity to bring down the humidity levels. It continued for some time on Tuesday morning as well, but Indian participants and all others in their team would wish it were only once. Rain is something they will try not to have when playing Afghanistan on game-day in Super-8s.
Rohit Sharma would be desperate not to have this match curtailed because India are way ahead of Afghanistan in 20 over contests on good pitches like St Lucia and Kensington Oval.
As one of the main highlight, yesterday showed exactly how India should go about their business tomorrow. The West Indies top-order batsmen Johnson Charles and Nicholas Pooran mercilessly hammered Fazalhaq Farooqi and Azmatullah Omarzai respectively who went for 92 runs in the first six overs which more or less killed Afghans in that game. However, from then onwards Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmed amongst others managed to slow down West Indies before Rashid conceded the last 28-run over though Pooran was still blazing.
India will definitely take a cue from this game and look to do maximum damage right at the top before Afghanistan spinners can get into the game. Considering it is a day game with no dew, batting first might seem ideal so as to take away the match from Afghanistan unless there happens to be plenty of moisture on match day. During practice sessions here, Virat Kohli is trying to maintain his attacking mode. For Rohit Sharma in T20s, its always top-gear cricket and the duo will look to push on the accelerator right from the word go. Also Rishabh Pant who will be number three for India at this tournament has been extremely good form lately and at least two of these three must come good so as to keep the Afghans at bay.
Afghanistan’s turnaround from a heavy 104-run defeat is very short, especially when they are up against a team that has never been defeated by them before. Lessons were tried to be learned by Coach Jonathan Trott from a defeat.
“We have seen the areas that we need to work on…If we don’t start an over well, being able to get out of it without too much damage is something we need to do. Today we had two that went for 60 runs and that swung the game massively and took a lot of pressure off the next 18 overs,” Trott said.
However, India can breathe easy because Afghanistan does not have enough depth in their pace attack that can really threaten them. This is one area where Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj and Hardik Pandya make India far superior than Afghanistan and it could be asking too much for Noor Ahmed et al.
Or, at least that is the opinion of all Indian fans from various parts of America and Canada who are flocking to Barbados and along with millions of others in India. We shall know in a matter of days!
