Even Virat Kohli was shocked it came in this format. One-thousand-twenty days and 83 international innings since he last scored a hundred, Kohli got his elusive No. 71 in a T20 international against Afghanistan in India's final match of the Asia Cup. Given the opportunity to open the innings in the absence of the resting captain, Rohit Sharma, Kohli played a vintage innings, going from 10 off 10 to 50 off 32 and then scoring 63 off the last 21 balls he played. Bhuvneshwar Kumar then returned figures of 4-1-4-5 with each-way swing to leave Afghanistan reeling.
Playing less than 24 hours after the heartbreak against Pakistan, Afghanistan wore a dazed look. They dropped three relatively easy catches, and looked like they had no response when Kohli went on the offensive. And Bhuvneshwar didn't need to set batters up. Outswingers took edges, inswingers smashed the stumps, and slower balls were chipped to fielders.
New opening pair takes time and then go bang
The match started with the energy of a dead rubber. India made three changes, and it would have been tough for Afghanistan to get up and dust themselves in a match they didn't have anything to play for. The first two overs went quietly by, but in the third KL Rahul began to push India's intent. Kohli took apart Mujeeb Ur Rahman in the sixth, coming down the wicket and reaching the pitch of the ball to negate his mystery, and also employing the rare sweep. Soon he had overtaken Rahul.
In the eighth over came a pivotal moment of the match: Kohli mis-hit a pull of Mohammad Nabi, but Ibrahim Zadran misjudged the space behind him, ending up going one-handed and tapping the ball over the boundary.
Source: https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/asia-cup-2022-1327237/afghanistan-vs-india-11th-match-super-four-1327279/match-report
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