India captain Rohit Sharma and wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant shared a hilarious moment during the T20 World Cup Super 8 match against Afghanistan in Barbados. The incident happened in the 11th over of Afghanistan’s 182-run chase after Pant and Kuldeep Yadav combined to dismiss Gulbadin Naib. On the second ball of the over, Kuldeep outfoxed Naib with a flighted delivery wide of off. Naib mistimed his slog sweep and got a top edge instead. Pant covered a decent amount of ground to pouch the ball and under armed the cherry towards Rohit, who had also made an attempt to grab the ball but stopped midway after seeing the keeper.
In a viral video, Rohit asked Pant to calm down before he under armed the ball towards the Indian skipper. Pant, however, managed to complete the catch as he Rohit hugged each other before sharing a smile. For context, Rohit wanted Pant to ensure that he completed the catch.
“Theek hai, theek hai,” Rohit can be seen as saying to Pant.
Coming back to the match, India put on an all-round performance to hammer Afghanistan by 47 runs at the Kensington Oval.
After Suryakumar Yadav‘s whirlwind half-century powered India to a competitive total, the bowlers blew Afghanistan away with a disciplined bowling performance.
Suryakumar’s fifty was his 19th fifty in the format and helped India post a challenging 181-8 in their second round Super Eights opener.
Experienced fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah then combined with spin trio Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja to strangle Afghanistan, seen by many as dark horses for the title, who were dismissed for 134 off the last ball.
Bumrah finished with a career best 3-7 from his four overs while fellow seamer Arshdeep Singh took 3-36.
Afghanistan, who won their opening three games in the group stage, have now lost back-to-back matches.
India will now take on Bangladesh in their second Super 8 match on Saturday.
(With AFP Inputs)
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