In the Super 4 match on Thursday at the Asia Cup, Virat Kohli finally scored a century, leading India to 212/2 against Afghanistan. Afghanistan's response has been disastrous as Bhuvneshwar Kumar destroyed the Afghan batters. In his four overs, Bhuvneshwar took five wickets, and Arshdeep Singh took one. Additionally, Deepak Hooda took a wicket.
Handshakes are exchanged as India concludes with a convincing victory. A bittersweet sense of relief for India while Afghanistan will welcome some much-needed relaxation. Virat Kohli's record-breaking 122 helped to secure this victory, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar's five-wicket opening spell completely destroyed the Afghani batting order. This is only the fourth T20I in which a team has both a centurion and a five-wicket haul.
In a post match interview following his five-wicket haul, Bhuvneshwar says, "I was just bowling in the right areas, and it was just my day. Surprisingly it did [swing]. The white ball doesn't usually swing for 3-4 overs. Today wherever I was bowling I was getting the wickets. If you look at the other matches, there was not much swing and bounce. It's been a good tournament, if you look at the matches it's good for us to be playing strong teams like this heading into the World Cup."
Kohli completed his 100 t20i sixes in this match along with 71st centuries including all formats. POST MATCH CEREMONY:
Losing Captain Mohammed Nabi: "It's really tough to play against Pakistan, a tight game, and then another tough game against India. Mentally we weren't prepared, we tried our best, but we couldn't get there. [Jaded today?] Today we tried our best, but the way KL Rahul and Virat started was tough, and we dropped some catches as well. [Tournament?] We started on a high morale. Last few games we also played really well, even though we didn't finish really well as a team.”
Winning Captain KL Rahul: "Coming back after a big injury and surgery, I've learnt that it's not as easy as you think. Finding the same touch or rhythm wasn't coming as easily as I thought it would. Happy I could find some time in the middle. Once I hit a few in the middle of the bat I started feeling good. [any special shots?] Not really. I think the Hong Kong game I hit one out of the ground, it felt good. And then hitting a few shots in the Pakistan game gave some confidence. [review of India's Asia Cup?] The result has been disappointing. We came into the tournament wanting to play the final and the groove of winning big tournaments. There are positives to take out, and we've really been challenged. Time to sit back and reflect where we need to improve, but it's happened at a really good time - obviously don't want to lose - but we can take away a lot of lessons."
Virat Kohli takes home the Catch of the Match and Player of the Match! "Firstly I am grateful for how the day went today. Time away from the game gave me a good chance to sit back and observe a lot of things about me. I mentioned one special person - Anushka - who stood by me through these tough times and I mentioned her as she has seen the absolute raw side of me throughout all these months. She was the one putting things in perspective for me, kept giving me the right kind of guidance, the right kind of vision moving forward and I came back into the system a very relaxed person. I wasn't desperate to prove anything to anyone - in a very real sense, not in a way that 'I've done everything - it's just about enjoying the game, understanding what God has blessed you with already, and then just being humble and going out there and doing the grind all over again. Today I think was just a build up of the last few games - I actually batted out of my skin, to be honest, I surprised myself. [Long gap between hundreds?] What actually surprised me was my 60s became failures, which was very shocking for me. I was batting pretty well and contributing, but it didn't seem to be good enough. But as I said, God has blessed me with a lot of good times in the past, and that's why I'm in this position where these things can be spoken about. I have absolute no shame in admitting that God is blessing us all with everything in our destiny, we just have to work hard. So I went back to the drawing board, came back fresh, and came back excited. The team management has also had great communication with me through these times, they've kept my perspective right. When I came back there was not much information coming my way, they just said 'you bat and enjoy yourself."
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