ODI World Cup 2023: India vs Afghanistan, 9th Match - Who Said What?

India continued their winning run in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 as they Afghanistan by eight wickets on Wednesday, October 11 at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi. After Afghanistan captain Hashamatullah Shahidi won the toss and elected to bat first, his side managed to post 272/8 in their allotted 50 overs.

In reply, India chased down the target effortlessly in 35 overs as Rohit Sharma scored a blistering hundred along with a half-century from Virat Kohli. Ishan Kishan (47 off 47) also had a good outing after his duck in the opening fixture as he added 156 runs for the first wicket with Rohit.

Also Check: Delhi crowd chant 'Kohli-Kohli!' to welcome Naveen ul Haq at the crease

Here are the talking points from the game:

1. Jasprit Bumrah’s four-fer

Star India speedster Jasprit Bumrah was up to the task as he once again struck with the new ball dismissing Ibrahim Zadran in the seventh over. He further got rid of Mohammad Nabi (19 off 27), Najibullah Zadran (2 off 8) and Rashid Khan (16 off 12) to register figures of 4/39 in ten overs.

2. Rohit Sharma’s record-shattering knock

The Indian captain was seen in imperious form as he came out all guns blazing from the first ball itself. Rohit played a scintillating innings of 131 off 84 balls smashing 14 fours and five sixes in his innings. During the course of his innings, he shattered several records as he recorded most number of hundreds in ODI World Cup history (7), most sixes in international cricket (556), fastest hundred by an Indian in ODI World Cup (63 balls).

3. Virat Kohli stops Delhi crowd from taunting Naveen ul Haq

Star India batter Virat Kohli once again put his remarkable sportsman spirit on display as he asked his home crowd to stop chanting his name to tease Afghanistan seamer Naveen ul Haq. Notably, the duo had a heated altercation during Match 43 of IPL 2023 between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).

Hence, the crowd wanted to get under the skin of Naveen at Kohli’s home ground. However, the star India batter requested his fans to not go after the Afghanistan youngster and was even spotted having a friendly chat with Naveen.

Also Check: Virat Kohli and Naveen-ul-Haq exchange smiles at the Arun Jaitley

Losing Captain, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Afghanistan said:

We had in mind that India's batting lineup is long, 300 was on our mind but unfortunately we lost too many wickets. The surface was good. We wanted to score more runs and put pressure on the opposition. Back-to-back wickets was the reason we didn't score more runs. After losing 3 wickets I was talking to Azmatullah - Don't worry about dots, we will convert later. Our aim was to build a partnership. We have seven more games, looking forward to those games. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes and we will work on it.

Winning Captain and Player of the Match, Rohit Sharma said:

It was a good pitch to bat on, just backed myself to play my natural game. I knew once I got my eye in, the wicket was going to get easier for me. Something that I have been working on from a long time. It's a special feeling to get a World Cup hundred. Really happy with that. Don't want to think too much (scoring 7 hundreds in just three World Cups), I don't want to lose my focus. You need to make such things count. You gotta make it big. Some of it (the shots he plays) is premeditated. I let my instincts take over at times, sometimes it really works well. It's my job to make sure to get those starts especially in run chases. That's something I have done in the past and something I love doing. Sometimes it (attacking the bowlers) works, sometimes it doesn't. Just need to keep doing it and keep putting oppositions under pressure going forward.

Was a good win for us, very important to get that momentum at the start of the tournament. It is about absorbing pressure and taking the right decision on the field. There will be a spell from the opposition where you will have to absorb pressure. Leading up to the tournament we had played such games. You have got players with different skill sets in our team. They bring different attributes of the game to the team and it puts you in good positions as a team when you have that. We have got guys who can play fearless cricket with bat and guys who can absorb like the last game. (Asked about playing Pakistan and the talk around it) For us it's crucial that we don't worry about external factors and just look at things we can control. We just need to show up and do well. Things like what the pitch is like, what combo we can play is what we can control. What happens outside we won't be worried about it. It's just about focusing on what we can do as players and how we can perform.