IND VS AFG - 9th Match, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023

India are off to a great start in this comp and their next game is against Pakistan - the highly anticipated contest. Players want to stay away from the hype and treat it as just another game of cricket. But the buzz is already picking up and there's a festive mood, especially with India starting their campaign well. Afghanistan move down south to Chennai to play New Zealand next where they will be more potent because it brings their spinners into play. But before that we have Australia locking horns with South Africa tomorrow. All eyes on the pitch for this mouth-watering contest. We will be back nice and early to bring you everything. Good night!

Rohit Sharma | India captain: Was a good win for us, very important to get that momentum at the start of the tournament. It is about absorbing pressure and taking the right decision on the field. There will be a spell from the opposition where you will have to absorb pressure. Leading up to the tournament we had played such games. You have got players with different skill sets in our team. They bring different attributes of the game to the team and it puts you in good positions as a team when you have that. We have got guys who can play fearless cricket with bat and guys who can absorb like the last game. (Asked about playing Pakistan and the talk around it) For us it's crucial that we don't worry about external factors and just look at things we can control. We just need to show up and do well. Things like what the pitch is like, what combo we can play is what we can control. What happens outside we won't be worried about it. It's just about focusing on what we can do as players and how we can perform.

Hashmatullah Shahidi | Afghanistan captain: We had in mind that India's batting lineup is long, 300 was on our mind but unfortunately we lost too many wickets. The surface was good. We wanted to score more runs and put pressure on the opposition. Back-to-back wickets was the reason we didn't score more runs. After losing 3 wickets I was talking to Azmatullah - Don't worry about dots, we will convert later. Our aim was to build a partnership. We have seven more games, looking forward to those games. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes and we will work on it.

Stats courtesy Roshan Gede

This was India’s 7th successful chase of 250 or more in World Cups, no other team has more than 5.

Highest PP scores for India (where data available*)
97/2 vs SL, Hobart, 2012
94/0 vs AFG, Delhi, 2023
91/1 vs SL, Colombo, 2021
87/0 vs SA, Nagpur, 2011
83/1 vs WI, Port of Spain, 2019

Highest scores in successful World Cup chases
152* - Devon Conway (NZ) vs ENG, Ahmedabad, 2023
139* - Lahiru Thirimanne (SL) vs ENG, Wellington, 2015
134* - Stephen Fleming (NZ) vs SA, Johannesburg, 2003
131* - Mohammad Rizwan (PAK) vs SL, Hyderabad, 2023
131 - Rohit Sharma (IND) vs AFG, Delhi, 2023
127* - Sachin Tendulkar (IND) vs KEN, Cuttack, 1996

Interestingly, Rohit’s seven World Cup hundreds came against six different opponents. Sachin Tendulkar (6) and Kumar Sangakkara (5) scored theirs against five different teams in the competition.

Most hundreds in successful World Cup chases
3 - Rohit Sharma
2 - Gordon Greenidge
2 - Ramiz Raja
2 - Stephen Fleming

Most runs in first 10 overs of a WC innings (since 2003)
77 - Brendon McCullum (NZ) vs ENG, Wellington, 2015
76 - Rohit Sharma (IND) vs AFG, Delhi, 2023
72 - Kusal Mendis (SL) vs SA, Delhi, 2023

Highest targets successfully chased by India in World Cups
288 vs Zimbabwe, Auckland, 2015
275 vs Sri Lanka, Mumbai WS, 2011 Final
274 vs Pakistan, Centurion, 2003
273 vs Afghanistan, Delhi, 2023
265 vs Sri Lanka, Headingley, 2019

Highest targets successfully chased in ODIs in Delhi
278 - IND vs SL, 1982
273 - IND vs AFG, 2023
272 - SL vs IND, 1996
239 - IND vs AUS, 1986
238 - IND vs ENG, 2011

Highest run-rates in successful 250-plus chases in World Cups
7.8 - (273/2) - IND vs AFG, Delhi, 2023
7.78 - (283/1) - NZ vs ENG, Ahmedabad, 2023
7.75 - (322/3) - BAN vs WI, Taunton, 2019
7.13 - (345/4) - PAK vs SL, Hyderabad, 2023
7.05 - (260/2) - IND vs IRE, Hamilton, 2015

Rohit Sharma | Player of the Match: It was a good pitch to bat on, just backed myself to play my natural game. I knew once I got my eye in, the wicket was going to get easier for me. Something that I have been working on from a long time. It's a special feeling to get a World Cup hundred. Really happy with that. Don't want to think too much (scoring 7 hundreds in just three World Cups), I don't want to lose my focus. You need to make such things count. You gotta make it big. Some of it (the shots he plays) is premeditated. I let my instincts take over at times, sometimes it really works well. It's my job to make sure to get those starts especially in run chases. That's something I have done in the past and something I love doing. Sometimes it (attacking the bowlers) works, sometimes it doesn't. Just need to keep doing it and keep putting oppositions under pressure going forward.

21:00 Local Time, 15:30 GMT, 21:00 IST: All happy faces in the Indian camp as they congratulate each other. Virat doesn't disappoint his home crowd - they will be happy to have seen a fifty from him. And Rohit gave them a party with an onslaught in the powerplay while also notching up the fastest hundred by an Indian in World Cups. So on a batting beauty, Afghanistan opted to bat, while Rohit was happy to bowl citing dew. Bumrah, Hardik, Shardul got the hosts off to a good start but the away team recovered nicely with a century stand between captain Hashmatullah and Azmatullah. And Hardik bowled a dream slower ball to knock over the latter to break that stand. And once that happened, Afghanistan lost gas and couldn't propel beyond 300 as Bumrah worked his magic out at the end. This was at least a 350 pitch batting first. Afghanistan were well short and India cruised to victory. Ishan and Shreyas spending some time would please the management.

Azmatullah to Kohli, FOUR, and he steps down the ground for a neat lofted on-drive! That's the game, an 8-wicket win with 15 overs to spare for India. They have got two very different, impressive wins to kickstart their World Cup campaign

Azmatullah to Kohli, 2 runs, top edged pull shot, but it lands safely at deep backward square leg and that's back-to-back fifties for Virat Kohli. His 68th in ODIs too. The crowd loves it, gives him a great round of applause

Crowd goes "Kohli, Kohli, Kohli" as Virat has two more balls this over to get the fifty

Azmatullah to Shreyas Iyer, 1 run, short delivery, Shreyas stands tall and manages to guide it to third man

Azmatullah to Kohli, 1 run, shortish delivery, Virat mistimes the pull to mid-on