T20 World Cup 2021: Amitabh Bachchan reminds Indian fans of team's achievements ahead of New Zealand-Afghanistan clash

Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan lauded the Indian cricket team in a recent tweet, reminding the fans what the team has achieved at the T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates. India, placed in group 2 alongside Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia, are yet to qualify for the semi-finals of the tournament.

The team started their campaign with two consecutive losses against Pakistan and New Zealand before getting themselves back on track with massive victories over Afghanistan and Scotland. However, the initial losses mean India’s qualification fate is no longer in their hands, with them hoping for other results to fall their way.

As things stand, India will qualify only if Afghanistan manages to defeat New Zealand on November 7 and then India defeat Namibia the next day. Meanwhile, New Zealand will be through to the semis should they win against Afghanistan.

“Irrespective of what the results of tomorrow’s NZ v AFG game are in the T20 ICC World Cup … remember this … we have scored the highest total, till date, in the tournament; KL Rahul made the fastest 50; and we defeated the opposing team, in a record 6+ overs…” Bachchan, an avid cricket follower, wrote on Twitter on November 7.

Notably, India skittled out Scotland for a paltry 85 runs in their last Super12 game before KL Rahul blasted an 18-ball 50 to help India complete the chase in merely 6.3 overs – quick enough to take India’s net run rate past Afghanistan and New Zealand.

“The bowlers were excellent, and then KL and Rohit did really well. We spoke about the 8-10 over bracket before the start, didn’t want to really go too hard because if you lose wickets, then an extra 20 balls could cost. We thought that if they play naturally, runs will come quickly,” skipper Virat Kohli said after the victory.

“If you look at our practice games, we have been actually batting like this [aggressively] only. Just a couple of aberrations [Pakistan and New Zealand] happened, where we just couldn’t got those two successive good overs. Teams bowled well too, and created pressure on us. But we were just two overs of good batting. Jadeja bowled really well, also Shami was quite good,” he added.