India was expected to have an easy walk over in their match against Afghanistan, but then they offered a tough resistance, restricting India for 224 runs and going down in the last over, 11 runs short. Mohammad Shami was instrumental in India’s success, defending 16 runs in the last over by picking a hat trick- the second bowler after Chetan Sarma from India to do so in a World Cup encounter.
On a pitch were the batsmen found the going tough, Virat Kohli seemed to be batting on a different track, scoring 67 off 63. But once the Indian captain was dismissed, the partnership between Kedhar Jadhav 52(68) and MS Dhoni 28(52) seemed a little too slow for the fans liking. India could eventually make only 224.
Now Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar said the Dhoni-Jadhav partnership was just too slow against the Afghanistan spinners and felt “slightly disappointed”.
“I felt slightly disappointed. It could have been much better. I was also not happy with the partnership between Kedar and Dhoni, it was very slow. We batted 34 overs of spin bowling and scored 119 runs. This was one area where we didn’t look comfortable at all. There was no positive intent,” Tendulkar was quoted as saying by India Today.
“There were more than 2-3 dot balls. After virat got out in the 38th over and till the 45th over we hadn’t scored many runs. There were not enough outings for the middle order batsmen till now and that put pressure on them. But the intent could have been much better by the middle order batsmen.” Sachin also said that Jadhav looked a bit rusty since he did not have many chances to bat.
Indian cricket team, Are you listening? Am sure they are…
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