Ind vs Afg, CWC '23: Shardul Thakur takes a STUNNER to send Rahmanullah Gurbaz packing - Watch

After losing the toss, Rohit Sharma-led India have been asked to bowl first by Afghanistan in match 9 of CWC 2023 edition on Wednesday (Oct 11). Afghanistan were off to a decent start before they were soon reduced to 63 for 3. Talking about the Afghan openers, Ibrahim Zadran departed for 22 whereasRahmanullah Gurbaz (21) was looking good before Shardul Thakur held on to a stunning catchto send him packing.

Talking about Gurbaz's dismissal, it was a well-executed short-pitched delivery from birthday boy Hardik Pandya. The batter went for the shot and seemed to have timed it well. Shardul, stationed at deep fine leg, caught the ball, was about to touch the boundary rope and, hence, threw the ball in the air, regained balance and completed the catch without breaking a sweat.

Here is the video of Shardul's effort:

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For the Afghanistan game, India have gone ahead with an extra pacer in the form of fast-bowling all-rounder Shardul as R Ashwin got dropped from the playing XI.

After losingthe toss, captain Rohit Sharma stated, "We were looking to bat second. We saw the amount of dew last evening. Don't think the wicket will change much. Need to bowl well and need to come back and bat better. We were under pressure (against Australia) to start with, but KL and Kohli batted well, they were magnificent and we take a lot of pride in our performance. It was a good game for us, hopefully we can repeat that and keep the momentum going forward.Ashwinmisses out,Shardul Thakurcomes in for him."

India is keen to make it two wins in a row in the 10-team tournament after beating five-time champions Australia by six wickets in their opening clash, in Chennai on Sunday (Oct 8).

Teams:

Afghanistan(Playing XI): Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi(c), Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Naveen-ul-Haq, Fazalhaq Farooqi

India(Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

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