T20 World Cup: Sachin Tendulkar praises India's performance against Afghanistan - Watch
Sachin Tendulkar
India's batting legend Sachin Tendulkar praised India's performance against Afghanistan in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup on Wednesday (November 3) — a crucial contest that the Virat Kohli & Co. won by 66 runs to keep their semi-final hopes alive in the tournament.
The pre-tournament favourites lost their first two matches of Super 12 stage against arch-rivals Pakistan and New Zealand that left their semi-final hopes hanging by a thread. The Men In Blue were on a verge of an early exit but the comprehensive win against Afghanistan is a sigh of relief for the Virat Kohli-led Team India.
During the match, openers Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul hammered half-centuries to guide India to a mammoth 210 for two in a must-win match at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
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Tendulkar praised India's approach with a special mention of Rohit and Rahul. "Today's match was a big one for team India and we badly needed that. The way Rohit and Rahul batted was brilliant. Afghanistan got it wrong from the starting, as they started with the spinners," said Tendulkar in his Facebook video.
"Usually, you can start with the spinners but in today's game, there was grass on the wicket's surface. I would say that seamers would have worked better in that situation," he added.
"The best thing I found about Rohit today is that the way he played the inside out to off-spinner Nabi. Rohit's experience helped him in this situation and he played some good shots, so as with KL Rahul, very calm and composed and even played some exquisite shots," he said.
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"The running between the wickets of the opening pair was really impressive. Usually while scoring boundaries during the powerplay, the batters miss singles and doubles. But that was not the case today and the running was also equally aggressive," he added.
Group 2 leaders Pakistan have qualified for the semi-finals and India hope to join them by winning their matches against Scotland and Namibia handsomely and relying on Afghanistan to beat New Zealand.