The lack of a reliable fifth bowling option in the injury-forced absence of Hardik Pandya seems to be the only major concern for India as they look to deliver another knockout punch and seal the series against Afghanistan in the second T20I in Delhi on Tuesday. World Cup winners India returned to the shortest format with a dominant show, beating Afghanistan by seven wickets in a one-sided contest on Sunday. Shreyas Iyer’s men ticked all the boxes as pacer Arshdeep Singh and opening batter Abhishek Sharma produced sensational performances to set up the win.
We gave them back-to-back wickets and they put pressure on us, and we batted well in the middle overs, but we didn’t put lots of runs on the board what we wanted,” Afghan skipper Ibrahim Zadran said on Sunday. “We had three overs good start, then we didn’t contribute well. The early wickets of key batters Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Azmatullah Omarzai on Sunday put Afghanistan under pressure as they lost half their side for 43 in the seventh over.
The Kerala batter was a star of India’s T20 World Cup triumph but his form has been topsy-turvy ever since, having scored 33 runs in four innings before the Afghanistan series.
However, these are minor issues for a team that is operating like a well-oiled machine, and Afghanistan will have to come up with much better plans to contain the side. The Afghans were no match for India in the opening game, lacking the batting firepower and the bowling attack to put their opponents under any kind of pressure. It is a short series and Afghanistan will need a far stronger batting effort after their top order struggled to build momentum in the opening game.
