Ind vs Afg Highlights - Suryakumar and Bumrah seal comfortable India win

With Afghanistan throttled at 134, you get an even better idea of how well India played to get 181 and the value their no-more-safety-first batting approach brings.

There were geniuses at play in Bridgetown, wearing the India blue as they cruised to victory in their first Super Eight game in the T20 World Cup 2024. The pitch, once again, was tough to bat on, slow and offering purchase to everyone willing to roll their fingers across the ball. Suryakumar Yadav, though, found a way to prosper, as he often does in T20 cricket, helping his team post a par-plus total of 181 for 7. That brought Jasprit Bumrah (4-1-7-3) into the fray and he immediately set about dismantling Afghanistan, his two early strikes leaving them indisposed for the rest of the innings.

The T20 World Cup final will be taking place here. India's batters did well to upset the rhythm of the game, never going into their shell even as Afghanistan struck early. India's bowlers have benefited from how no one apart from Rahmanullah Gurbaz really came at them. That means they could settle into a line and length and control the game.

Rohit has even used this opportunity to give overs to Jadeja and get him game ready. He will be pleased with Kuldeep's work, coming into this game and picking up 2 for 31. And Arshdeep too recovered from a two-over first spell for 22 runs to almost pick up a hat-trick.

Kuldeep strikes with his second ball of the tournament.

India's riches are the envy of the world. They left him out of the XI because in New York the pitches were seam-friendly and they needed extra batting cover. Now, in the Caribbean, on slower surfaces that are taking spin, they could call up one of T20I cricket's most fearsome strike forces. Average of 14, Economy rate of 6.7, Strike rate of 12.5. Those are dream numbers over a 35 match career.

Jadeja removes Omarzai at the other end and this game is coming to a swift conclusion.

You'd have seen this on social media. Ravindra Jadeja coming into the Super Eight had scored 0 runs, picked up zero wickets and taken zero catches. Today, on a pitch that is definitely calling his name, he gets struck for six first ball. Afghanistan are no giving up this chase just yet. They're 66 for 3 after 10 overs.

India overcame the conditions with Suryakumar Yadav in the first innings. Now they are harnessing them with Jasprit Bumrah. Yet again his slower ball produces a false shot, Hazratullah Zazai, who has a high score of 162, which really is why he came into this game, to produce that kind of wildcard impact, is done all ends up.

First the line of the ball, pitching on leg stump, makes him play with a closed face. That's a mistake because this is the offbreak and as soon as it hits the pitch, there's puff of dust and it spins clean across the left-hander to nick his leading edge and goes through to Jadeja at point. What a bowler.

This is Arshdeep Singh. He took too long to go pace off. Also Rahmanullah Gurbaz had a good strategy to deal with the vagaries in the pitch, racing down the track to meet balls, making momentum for himself.

Then on came Jasprit Bumrah. He went slower ball almost right away. And in addition to that, he kept the line wide, denying Gurbaz his favourite area, down the ground. Plus, he has spoken that he has an offspinner's quicker ball, not a fast bowler's slower ball. That's why this one kicked up off the pitch and took almost a top edge through to the keeper

Arshdeep returned for the third over and went to his own slower ball, but that didn't stick in the wicket. The break of his wrist wasn't strong enough to create the uncertainty. He could've had a wicket in the over though, Ibrahim Zadran found Virat Kohli at point but he dropped a simple catch

India save up Bumrah like he's their most precious resource. Now that he'd taken out Gurbaz, they turned to Axar Patel, who is very good at bowling in the fielding restrictions and now has a wicket maiden to show for it too.

There's spin on offer. The quicks taking pace off has made it difficult. Only the genius of Suryakumar was able to score quickly without any trouble: the only man, having faced more than 10 balls today, to have a strike rate above 150. Crucial cameos from Pant at the top and Hardik and Axar down below have pushed India to a very solid total.

He's played some special shots today - not in the way you usually associate with, where he finds a soft spot in the laws of physics and mercilessly pokes holes in them. But more in terms of just knowing his areas and then trusting his skill. Sweep to mess with the wristspinners. Smash whenever the quicks went too full. And swipe when they go slower ball.

He was beaten by Fazalhaq Farooqi in the 17th over, the offbreak sitting in the pitch for long enough to beat Surya aaaalllllll ends up. That same offbreak when it came down later in the over, was tonked almost clean out of the stadium. With it being the death overs now, Surya knows he can't hold back. He was also emboldened by Hardik (from 13 off his first 14 balls to 19 off his next eight) finding his range so he went for another big hit off another slower ball but on this occasion it ends up a catch at long-off.

Surya looking as dangerous as he does has forced Afghanistan's hand and made them bowl out Rashid Khan by the 14th over.

Surya hasn't been 360 degrees today. He's actually pared his game down. Simply put, he saw the short boundary on the leg side and he went for his sweeps, even to a ball from Azmatullah Omarzai's pace that was well outside the wide line.

He spoke about cross-bat shots in the pre-match presser, about how he uses them to generate pace when the pitch offers no pace. It's immense ability backed by clear thinking. With Surya in the middle, India can look at a sizeable total. Rashid wanted to change that, but his spell is. Now its over to the others to take out India's dangerman.

Playing orthodox shots in these slow conditions do not get a whole lot of runs. That's why slow conditions are difficult for batters. They limit the rate of scoring. Hardik, attempting orthodox shots, is 13 off 14. Surya, looking to disrupt, is 41 off 21.

ESPNcricinfo's Forecaster had India's total tracking down by 18 runs to 171 at the end of the ninth over in response to Virat Kohli's wicket.

But with Surya and Dube continuing to attack, the pendulum swung the other way. Forecaster had India's total up by 18 runs to 189 in the 10th over.

In the 11th over, Rashid took out Dube. This is a slow pitch and its taking turn. Afghanistan are more than capable of exploiting these conditions if all they have to think about is bowling on the same spot over and over and over again.

India so far haven't allowed that, with Suryakumar being especially disruptive with his sweep shots. He's brought them out three times and each time he's got a boundary - 2x4s and 1x6.

There was a touch of disdain about the shot too. He waited because he had to on this pitch, holding his shape until the back of a length ball was within reach to flat-bat it over Naveen-ul-Haq's head.

Middled it straight to long-off! He was staring at the flight of the ball, eyes nice and wide, and the moment he saw it settle in Mohammad Nabi's hands, he turned away, disgusted. India are not giving up the approach that they have committed to. They want to go hard. They want to hit hard. Even Kohli who normally is very risk-averse is happy to play these kinds of shots, but there will always be these days when they go straight to the fielder. As if to reiterate that they will not take a step back, Suryakumar Yadav finishes the over with a sweep for four, taking the ball from well outside off stump and planting it into the short boundary.

Eleven overs still left to play. Shivam Dube is in the middle. He waited 60 balls for his first six in this T20 World Cup. Today, he only had to stomach four before getting the opportunity to clear the field.

It's his first wicket against India in T20Is and it's the completion of a match-up that is in his favour. Pant had 113 runs in 100 balls against the Afghanistan legspinner. But here, he tried to take Rashid on, went with that disruptive reverse sweep of his, but on this occasion, he was so totally done.

Rashid gets the legbreak to go up over the batter's eyeline, and then dip sharply. Too sharply now that the sucker punch has landed and it was a cross bat that he needed to beat. Special stuff. Pant gone lbw. India lost a review in the process.

Thirteen runs off the over, but it could've been oh so different had Naveen-ul-Haq, running around the deep square leg boundary, held onto a catch on the third ball of the over.

This is a calculated assault. Pant prefers hitting pace to spin. But since it's the last over of the powerplay, he wants to cash in. He chooses good options - his reverse hit, with which he has scored 93 runs in 55 balls in T20s and only been dismissed once. The orthodox sweep resulted in the catching chance, but then became a boundary. Now realising that he needed to hide the ball from Pant's reach, Nabi goes wide, but the left-hander is able to reach it and smash it over cover.

A pitch with no grass on it was always bound to be slow and so it has proved. Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott mentioned that they will thrive in these conditions and so it has proved. Fazalhaq Farooqi went slower ball even though his USP is swing to get rid of Rohit Sharma. Now Naveen-ul-Haq has come and is offering a steady diet of change-up deliveries, banging them into the pitch to see if he can get the batter to play a shot a bit too early and maybe secure a leading edge. Afghanistan have assessed the conditions well. They made the early breakthrough. Now they're setting themselves up for more. This is good clinical cricket.

Somewhere during the 2023 ODI World Cup, Rohit's old coach was saying he didn't like what he was doing at the crease, that he was taking too many risks and he should focus instead of saving his wicket and batting long. You can see the merit in that. If a batter of his calibre stays at the wicket for any length of time, it is good for the team.

So why does Rohit keep playing these airy-fairy shots? The shots that once seemed to have ended his Test career? Well because everybody else does it now. Limited-overs cricket has undergone vast change and at a personal cost Rohit has dragged India forward. He made only 8 off 13 today but at even the slightest opportunity, he set himself up to hit sixes.

Fazalhaq Farooqi, whom he targeted for those sixes right from the first over, eventually gets Rohit, but guess what happens next? Rishabh Pant wants in and scores 7 off 2 balls.

India cannot survive on a safety first approach in the modern-day game. So while that may result in a few low scores for a few batters here and there, the underlying template will allow for the team's success. That's the idea anyway

Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma walk out to the middle with the Hall and Griffith stand framing them. In the lead-up to the game, Wes Hall met up with Kohli at the dugout and confessed he's a big enough fan that he follows Kohli's numbers and asked him to go for the 100 hundreds. Conditions in the middle are much better for batting, and with invitingly short boundaries square of the wicket, Kohli might well be thinking about getting started on the climb. He's on 80 hundreds rn (and also coming off the back of three single-digit scores).

Rohit Sharma likes the look of the pitch for run-scoring, and believes as the game goes on, it will get slower and slower. One change with Kuldeep Yadav coming in for Mohammed Siraj. Here are the full playing XIs for both teams.

Bridgetown has a significant bias for team's batting first in men's T20Is. 12 wins as opposed to six chasing. Rashid Khan takes that disadvantage on the chin and says its about doing the right thing at the right time. One change. Karim Janat is out and Hazratullah Zazai is in