Bridgetown, Jun 20 (PTI) Rashid Khan improved his ordinary record against India before Suryakumar Yadav played like he only can to take his team to 181 for eight in a Super 8 fixture of the T20 World Cup here on Thursday.
After a grinding effort in his last innings, Suryakumar (53 off 28 ) was back to his nonchalant best and picked the boundaries at will on a track where the other batters struggled to get going. The other notable contributions came from Rishabh Pant (20 off 11), who too found the boundaries from the word go and Hardik Pandya (32 off 24).
Virat Kohli (24 off 24) got into the double digits for the first time in this tournament but was dismissed just when he was getting set.
Rashid (3/26), who had not picked up a wicket against India prior to this game, struck in his first three overs to put pressure on the opposition.
India expectedly opt to bat at the Kensington Oval and the way the ball held up on the pitch early one, it seemed playing through the line will be tough.
Skipper Rohit Sharma (8) tried to push the scoring rate in third over from Fazalhaq Farooqi (3/33) but was caught at mid-on after finding the toe end of his bat.
Rashid brought himself on right after the Powerplay with India reaching 47 for one. The star spinner sent back the dangerous Pant in the seventh over. The southpaw once again was not afraid to employ the sweep and audacious reverse sweep against the spinners before eventually falling to Rashid.
After Kohli was caught at long-off in Rashid’s second over, India felt the heat. Suryarkumar eased the tension with a flurry of sweeps against Rashid before the spinner got his third scalp in the form of Shivam Dube (10), who was trapped in front after the ball turned back in sharply and crashed into his back leg.
Surya kept finding the big hits from the other end. He outrageously whipped a wide full toss from Azmatullah Omarzai to deep square-leg before a six and four off Farooqi took him to a well made half-century.
After Surya’s departure, Hardik then got into the act and hammered the ball into the stands on couple of occasions. His straight six off left-arm spinner Noor Ahmed was all brute power, almost shattering the window of the press box. In the end, India did well to post their highest total at the historic venue. PTI KHS
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