Rohit Sharma has been out without scoring runs in past two matches. His form has become a concern for Indian team management. He played a huge innings against Afghanistan bowlers after losing 4 quick wickets. With his great innings, he took Indian score from 22/4 in 4.3 overs to 212/4 in 20 overs. He scored his fifth T20I century and even made his highest score ever in T20Is.
India won the toss at Bengaluru and elected to bat first for the first time. They have invited Afghanistan to bat first and chased the target successfully twice. This time they wanted to bat first and get that aspect also covered. Sanju Samson has been brought into the team in place of Jitesh Sharma for this match.
Yashasvi Jaiswal(4), Virat Kohli got out in the same over for back-to-back balls to left arm pacer Fareed Ahmad. In the next over, Azmatullah Omarzai for the first time in this series dismissed Shivam Dube for just 1 run to his name. Sanju Samson again failed and he did not score any, got out to Fareed Ahmad. At this juncture, Rinku Singh joined captain Rohit Sharma.
Both of them have put on 190 runs partnership. Rohit Sharma scored 121 runs from 69 balls unleashing mayhem in the final overs. Rinku Singh also took on Afghan bowlers and scored 69 runs from 39 balls. They scored 103 runs from the last 5 overs to push Indian score past 200. In the final over, they got 36 runs with 5 sixes, a four and one no-ball, 1 run.
Rohit Sharma has put on a show in the innings. He made sure that no other wicket will fall and also went on the bowlers to keep the score board ticking. Rinku Singh took his time and rotated strike but unleashed in the final overs. He is becoming a bonefide star and trustworthy middle-order batter for India.
As the Bengaluru ground is small, bowlers need to be restrictive even with such huge score. Indian bowlers need to find their lengths perfectly to restrict Afghan batters, who will go berserk from the word go, to chase down that huge score.
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