India opening batter KL Rahul expressed his happiness after he thrashed Afghanistan bowlers in the Group 2 match of the Super 12 stage of the ongoing ICC men’s T20 World Cup 2021 at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. Both the Indian openers, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul starred with the bat and smashed 74 and 69, respectively. “It’s the best wicket we’ve batted on in the last three games. The wicket looks better if the openers give you a solid foundation, and that’s what Rohit and I tried to do. Very happy with the batting performance. We’ve played together for a long time, we understand each other, even with the running between the wickets, and we have the freedom to go out there and play our games,” said Rahul in a post-innings interaction.

“I was trying to stay in good shape and not muscle the ball. You either play out the main bowler or go after him, but we had wickets in hand, so it doesn’t matter if it’s Rashid Khan or anyone else, and it came off for us today. Feels good to get runs off their No 1 bowler,” he added.

Put in to bat first, India took off at a fiery start with Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul scoring 53 runs in the powerplay. Runs kept flowing from the willow of the Indian pair as, by the end of the 10 overs, India’s score read 85/0.

In the 12th over, Rohit Sharma brought up his half-century, later in the same over KL Rahul smashed six, as the Indian openers crossed their 100 runs partnership.

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Afghanistan finally got a sigh of relief after Karim Janat removed Rohit Sharma in the 15th over, which was followed by the wicket of the other Indian opener KL Rahul by Gulbadin Naib in the 17th over. The openers stitched a partnership of 140 runs.

In the last two overs, Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya continued the carnage as the pair gathered 35 runs and brought team India to a total of 210 at the end of the innings.