India vs Afghanistan, 2nd T20: The youngsters of Team India on Sunday displayed some exceptional cricketing skills to take ‘Men in Blue’ to their second victory against Afghanistan and clinch the series by 2-0. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shivam Dube played a stunning innings to take the game home by 6 wickets. The only thing that sunk the hearts of Indian fans was Rohit Sharma’s second consecutive dismissal on a duck. Former Indian player Murali Kartik said that the only failure in the Afghanistan T20 series so far has been skipper Rohit Sharma.
“The only failure has been the skipper. Two naughts in two games but he wouldn’t be too worried about that. Back in this format after a long time. Back as captain. He was run out in the first game. Tried to hit a big one today and lost his stumps but India has done well,” Murali Kartik during the commentary of the match.
Rohit Sharma displayed some brutal batting in the ICC World Cup 2023 and despite being the 50-over World Cup, the Indian skipper attacked from the first ball. The performance of Rohit Sharma in the ODI World Cup signaled that he can’t wait to enter the T20 grounds and will dominate the opposing teams with similar performances.
Comeback after 14 months
BCCI, selectors, and Indian fans were excited about the Afghanistan series as it marked the return of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, who were coming back to the shortest format of cricket after 14 months. Rohit Sharma didn’t leave his aggressive batting during the Test series against South Africa and people were expecting some out-of-the-ordinary performance from him against Afghanistan.
The fans can still forget Rohit Sharma’s dismissal in the first T20 at Mohali as Shubman Gill didn’t respond to his call and that led to a mix-up dismissal. But, during the second T20 at the Holkar Cricket Stadium, Rohit Sharma was dismissed in a clean bowled-out as Fazalhaq Farooqi’s unplayable delivery.
This is the first time that Rohit Sharma is gone for a duck in two consecutive T20 matches and this may impact the dynamics of the Indian squad ahead of the T20 World Cup in June 2024.
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Published: 15 Jan 2024, 04:31 PM IST