• Home
  • Cricket News
  • T20 World Cup Virat Kohli Scores 17 Ball 9 As India Surrender To New Zealand Once Again

T20 World Cup | Virat Kohli scores 17-ball 9 as India surrender to New Zealand once again

Onecricket

India were one of the firm favourites to win the T20 World Cup but one and a half games later, they are on the brink of getting knocked out of the tournament without making it to the semi-finals.

After a disastrous performance against Pakistan in the first game, India looked shell-shocked with the bat in their hands and could not bat with inter in the first few over. 

The new openers Ishan Kishan and KL Rahul tried to gauge the pace and nature of the pitch against the combination of Tim Southee and Trent Boult, but could not make any use of their time and left India in trouble.

Virat Kohli, who demoted himself to the number four position behind Rahul, Kishan and Rohit Sharma, also could not get going from the word go and struggled helplessly. He scored 9 runs of 17 balls.

None of the Indian batsmen batted with intent and their misery was on full-on display against New Zealand and they were reduced to a mere 110 runs in 20 overs and a lot of it came from the bat of Ravindra Jadeja in the last two overs.

Trent Boult, with a bowling figure of 20 runs for three wickets in his four overs and Ish Sodhi, with a bowling figure of 17 runs for two wickets from his four overs that included the big wickets of Rohit and Kohli were the main destructor. However, Mitchell Santner’s phenomenal control with the ball could not be downplayed and he asphyxiated the Indian batting lineup to give just 15 runs in his four overs.

Discover more

Top Stories
news

T20 World Cup | India suffer another top-order collapse

There was no end to India’s misery in their second game of the tournament against New Zealand as they slipped with another top-order collapse by the end of the powerplay. They made a change at the top of the order in the form of Ishan Kishan, who played the game in place of Suryakumar Yadav. Rohit Sharma was slanted to the number three in the hope of extracting a blistering start from the young left-hander. The move could also be seen as protecting Rohit Sharma from Trent Boult’s swing at the top but neither of those objectives were fulfilled. Kishan was not aggressive from the word go and was dismissed just when he started to take the attack to the opposition. At the other end, KL Rahul looked awfully out of touch and laboured for a couple of boundaries. However, he too was the victim of a catch right on the boundary line and Indians were once again rocked with two wickets without too many runs on the board. Rohit Sharma tried to up the ante against Adam Milne after the pacer dropped him on the very first ball on the fine-leg boundary. He and Rahul took two fours and one six off Milne before Ish Sodhi came to send him back to the pavilion. The Indian-origin leg spinner was not done for the night and got the big fish Virat Kohli when the Indian captain played an uncharacteristic slog out of sheer desperation. India have already lost a game against Pakistan in the tournament and a defeat against New Zealand would almost knock them out of the ground.

news

T20 World Cup | Hamid Hassan’s yorkers dismantle Namibia as Afghanistan record huge win

If the competition would be about Net Run Rate (NRR), Afghanistan would be winning it hands down. After defeating Scotland by 130 runs in their first match, the Afghans registered yet another huge victory as they downed Namibia by 62 runs. Hamid Hassan, who played in place of injured Mujeeb-Ur-Rahman was the hero of the game for the Afghans as his deadly yorkers saw the end of three of Namibia’s most dangerous batters in skipper Gerhard Erasmus, David Wiese and JJ Smit. Chasing a target of 161, Namibia didn’t really have a good start as they lost the opener, Craig Williams, in the very first over of the game to Naveen-Ul-Haq. Soon Michael Van Lingen departed as well, becoming the second scalp of Naveen. Nicol Loftie-Eaton, who did well with the ball in the first innings, wasn’t able to reflect it with the bat as he got bowled trying to hit a ball out of the park off the bowling of Gulbadin Naib. Rashid Khan had to do very little as Zane Green tried to ramp him and got bowled on the very first ball of his spell. After this dismissal, the best pairing for Namibia was crease as David Wiese partnered Erasmus. The two were going well and had added 20 runs for the fifth wicket at run a ball. But then came Hassan with his brutal toe crushing yorkers at a medium pace. He first bowled Erasmus and then in the same over removed another dangerous batter in JJ Smit with bouncer brushing his gloves and going into the gloves of Mohammad Shahzad. From there on there was no way that Namibia were going to chase down 105 from 55 balls and it was made sure as Jan Frylinck, the last batting option was also removed in the 15th over as Naveen picked Frylinck as his third wicket. From there on it was just formalities and they were completed as Hamid removed Wisese and Namibia played out the 20 overs. Earlier in the day, after winning the toss, Afghan skipper Mohammad Nabi decided to bat first and his decision was backed by a good opening partnership by Shahzad and Hzratullah Zazai as they added 53 for the first wicket. While Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Najibullah Zadran failed, Asghar Afghan who was playing his last game for the country, scored 31 off 23 and with Nabi’s unbeaten 32 off 17 and Shahzad’s important 45, Afghanistan got past 160 at the loss of five wickets. Leg spinner Loftie-Eaton picked two wickets for Namibia and finished with career-best figures of 2/21. Afghanistan will now face India and New Zealand in its next two games which would also be must-wins for them to qualify for the semi-finals. Namibia will take on group leaders Pakistan on Tuesday.

news

T20 World Cup | Emotional Asghar Afghan receives guard of honour from teammates, Namibia

Former Afghanistan skipper Asghar Afghan, who announced his retirement from the game yesterday was given a guard of honour by both Namibia and Afghanistan on Sunday, 31 October. Both the spectators present at the ground and his teammates left nothing to chance in giving him earnest respect. He was given a guard of honour on two occasions—at the time of entering the ground for batting and while leaving the playing field for the one last time on Sunday afternoon. First, the Namibian side gave him the honour while he came out to bat in the middle and his teammates were the ones to give him an emotional farewell on his way back to the pavilion. Watch video here Asghar could not hold himself back and get emotional on the sense of the occasion. He was asked to explain his decision to retire from the game midway through the T20 World Cup and he got in tears while struggling to explain his mind. Asghar has been one of the chief reasons for the rise of Afghanistan cricket on the world stage. He made his international debut in the year 2004 and has seen their rapid rise from Division 5 in 2008 to qualifying for the 50-over World Cup in 2015 and attaining Full Member status in 2018. He has captained Afghanistan in 115 matches across formats and was the leader of the side in their maiden Test match against India. He has won 42 T20 internationals as the skipper out of 52 matches. As a batsman, he is one of the few batsmen to have scored a century in both ODIs and Tests from the Afghanistan side.