Following his facet’s six-wicket loss to India within the first T20I, Afghanistan skipper Ibrahim Zadran mentioned that his facet was a minimum of 15 runs quick and that the facet has to enhance its fielding too. A half-century by Shivam Dube and a cameo by Jitesh Sharma helped India safe a six-wicket win over Afghanistan within the first T20I of the three-match collection at Mohali on Thursday.

“We were short 13-15 runs. We lost the toss too. But the boys fought well. We were trying to have a good powerplay start but we lost wickets then. One of us should’ve gone for 14-15 overs but we lost back-to-back wickets. When new batters came, we came under pressure. (Fielding effort) In the second inning, there was dew and gripping the ball was difficult. I can say that the boys tried really well. (Other areas of improvement) We will try to improve our fielding. We were quite lazy with the fielding today. We will try to improve batting as well. Bowling, we have no issue. We will focus on what we did wrong today,” mentioned Zadran in post-match presentation.

Coming to the match, put to bat first by India, Afghanistan had begin, with skipper Ibrahim Zadran (25 in 22 balls, with two fours and a six) and Rahmanullah Gurbaz (23 in 28 balls, with two fours and a six) including 50 runs for the primary wicket.

After Indian bowlers lowered Afghanistan to 57/3, A 68-run partnership between Azmatullah Omarzai (29 in 22 balls, with two fours and a six) and Mohammed Nabi (42 in 27 balls, with two fours and three sixes) bringing them again into the match. A stable partnership between Najibullah Zadran (19*) and Karim Janat (9*) on the again finish of the innings took them to 158/5 in 20 overs.

Axar Patel (2/23) and Mukesh Kumar (2/33) have been the choose of the bowlers for India. Shivam Dube obtained one wicket.

In the chase of 159, India misplaced skipper Rohit Sharma for a duck on his return to T20Is. Shubman Gill (23 in 12 balls, 5 fours) confirmed intent however couldn’t convert his begin into massive rating. A 44-run stand between Shivam Dube and Tilak Varma (26 in 22 balls, with two fours and a six) introduced India again into the match. Later, a 45-run stand between Shivam and Jitesh Sharma (31 in 20 balls, with 5 fours) took India near a win. Dube scored his second T20I half-century, getting 60 in 40 balls with 5 fours and two sixes and joined forces with Rinku Singh (16*) to win the sport for India.

Mujeeb ur Rahman took two wickets for Afghanistan, whereas Omarzai obtained a wicket.

India is 1-0 up within the collection, with two video games to go. Dube was given the ‘Player of the Series’ award.

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