Shivam Dube shines as India beat Afghans by 6 wkts in 1st T20I

 

Team India has made a great start to the series by defeating Afghanistan in the first T20 match of the new year.  In the first T20 match played in Mohali, Team India defeated Afghanistan by 6 wickets on the basis of all-round performance of Shivam Dube (60 not out, 1/9).  Indian bowlers first restricted Afghanistan to just 158 ​​and then achieved the target in the 18th over due to the dazzling  batting of Shivam Dube-Jitesh Sharma.  Along with this, captain Rohit Sharma, who returned to T20 International after 14 months, tasted victory on his return.

 In a few months, the cricket action is going to shift to a new ground in Mohali.  In such a situation, there was a lot of curiosity among the fans about this last international match at the PCA Stadium.  That's why even in the cold temperature of around 8-9 degrees, the fans remained in the stadium for this match.  This match was not as high scoring as expected but Team India showed its strong game and did not disappoint the fans.

 With this match, Rohit Sharma, who returned to T20 format after 14 months, made a good start by winning the toss and then decided to bowl first and the bowlers proved it right.  Indian bowlers controlled Afghanistan in the powerplay.  Then Axar Patel (2/23) and Shivam Dubey brought success to India by dismissing its openers.  By the 10th over, Afghanistan had lost 3 wickets and only 57 runs were scored.

After this, Mohammad Nabi (42) and Azmatullah Omarzai (29) together  counter-attacked.  Both Ravi Bishnoi and Mukesh Kumar leaked 31 runs in two consecutive overs as Afghan batters took the team beyond 100 runs.  In the end, it was Mukesh (2/33) who made Team India's comeback by dismissing both of them.  In the end, Najibullah Zadran (19 not out) also scored some runs quickly and took the team to 158 runs after losing 5 wickets in 20 overs.

 

 Everyone was waiting for the innings of Team India, because they were getting a chance to see Rohit Sharma playing in T20 format after 14 months.  The way Rohit had made a stellar start in the World Cup, it was expected that Rohit would do something similar here too.  Rohit (0) tried to do something similar but was run out on the very second ball.  The shot played by him was stopped by the fielder but Rohit ran for the run, while Shubman Gill kept looking at the ball and Rohit was run out.  Rohit returned to the pavilion in anger but then Gill also vented out some anger on the Afghan bowlers and hit 5 fours in quick succession.

 After a quick innings of 11 balls , Gill (23) was stumped by Mujeeb ur Rahman.  Tilak Verma (26) remained at the crease for a long time but failed to score runs quickly and was out.  Meanwhile, Shivam Dube kept taking the innings forward by scoring boundaries from time to time hitting dazzling shots .  He got good support from Jitesh Sharma, who was promoted.  This decision proved to be correct and Jitesh scored a hard hitting  31 runs in just 20 balls and took the team beyond 100 runs.  After this, Shivam (60 not out) and Rinku (16 not out) together took the team to victory.  Shivam scored his half-century in this format for the first time since 2019 and took the man of the match award.