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Team India beat Afghanistan comfortably by six wickets in the first T20I on Thursday (January 11) at the Punjab Cricket Association IS Bindra Stadium in Mohali. They now have an early lead of 1-0 in the three-match series, courtesy of the win.
Rohit Sharma won the toss in the contest and invited the visiting team to bat first. Afghanistan reached a respectable total of 158/5 in 20 overs on the back of decent contributions from their batting line-up.
Veteran all-rounder Mohammad Nabi top-scored for them with a blazing knock of 42 (27). Azmatullah Omarzai (29), Ibrahim Zadran (25), and Rahmanullah Gurbaz (23) got starts but failed to kick on. Mukesh Kumar and Axar Patel scalped two wickets each, while Dube picked up one wicket.
Shivam Dube (60*) then hit a brilliant half-century to shepherd India towards the target in the chase. Jitesh Sharma (31), Tilak Varma (26), and Shubman Gill (23) supported him in the middle. Rinku Singh (16*) continued to impress with yet another unbeaten cameo in a successful cause.
Fans on social media enjoyed the opening T20I of the three-match series between India and Afghanistan on Thursday. They expressed their reactions through some hilarious memes on social media.
Here are some of the best memes:
"We were short at least by 30 or 40 runs"- Afghanistan captain Ibrahim Zadran after losing 1st T20I vs India
At the post-match presentation, Afghan skipper Ibrahim Zadran reflected on the defeat, saying:
"We were short at least by 30 or 40 runs, we lost the toss unfortunately but the boys fought hard till the end. We were trying to get a start in the powerplay, me and Gurbaz, we lost wicket at the wrong time, one of us had to get going but we lost back to back wickets."
He added:
"We were under the pressure with new batters coming in. In the second innings there was a bit dew, gripping the ball was difficult and struggled with the bat, but bowlers did pretty well. We will try and improve on the fielding, we were quite lazy and also in the batting department, bowling wise we were good."
India and Afghanistan will next square off in the second T20I on Sunday (January 14) at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore.
