The first T20I between India and Afghanistan went into a Super Over. For the first time between both teams, the game ended in a tie, followed by two one-over eliminators. Batting first, the Men In Blue started poorly as they lost four wickets for 22 runs. However, the likes of Rohit Sharma and Rinku Singh steadied the innings till the 15th over.
At the end of 15 overs, the home side was at 109/4. In the last five overs, Singh and Sharma smashed 103, taking the team to 212/4 at the end of the innings. With a partnership of 190 runs for the fifth wicket, they broke the record of Virat Kohli-Hardik Pandya’s partnership against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup 2022. In reply, the Afghans started slowly and needed to get big runs in the last few overs.
Former captains, Mohammad Nabi and Gulbadin Naib helped the team tie the game in the end, with 212/6 on the board. With this, both teams played a Super Over. Batting first, the Afghans scored 16, losing one wicket. On the last ball of this over, Nabi scored a run off a bye. However, the ball deflected with Nabi’s leg and the former skipper scored three runs. Both Nabi and Sharma argued over the matter.
No, it’s fine. It’s part of the game: Rahul Dravid
After the match, India’s head coach defended Nabi‘s actions by saying that the latter took those runs well within the rules.
“No, it’s fine. It’s part of the game. It can be frustrating if you are at the receiving end but it’s okay, it happens. I think you can [run] for those. There was an incident in the first match where I think it hit the bat of one of our batters and we ran a run. Nothing in the rules that stops you from running those runs,” he told reporters.
In the end, the first Super Over tied with India also scoring 16 runs. In the next Super Over, India scored 11/2. In reply, Afghanistan managed 1/2, losing the game by 10 runs in the one-over eliminator
