From Pune to Muscat, Friday was not a good day for Indian cricket. On one hand, in the Pune Test match, New Zealand bowled out Team India for just 156 runs and then scored 198 runs with tremendous batting and took a lead of 301 runs. On the other hand, in the semi-finals of the Emerging Team Asia Cup being played in Muscat, the capital of Oman, Afghanistan thrashed the Indian bowlers and rained runs. In this also, leg spinner Rahul Chahar, who has played T20 World Cup for Team India, was beaten the most, whose 31 runs were looted by Afghan batsmen by hitting 4 sixes in a single over.
India A team, captained by Tilak Verma, performed strongly in the group stage of this tournament, winning all its matches and making it to the semi-finals. Even a team like Pakistan A was not able to trouble them much but in the semi-finals a different scene was seen, which surprised everyone. Batting first in this semi-final, Afghanistan A scored about 140 runs in 14 overs without losing any wicket. During this period, every bowler came under attack from the Afghan openers but leg spinner Rahul Chahar was especially thrashed.
For Afghanistan A, the opening pair of Sadiqullah Atal and Zubaid Akbari had scored 104 runs in just 12 overs. After this came the 13th over in which Rahul came to bowl. Rahul, who played the T20 World Cup in 2021 for Team India, was expected to perform well here but he presented the worst bowling performance. This over of Rahul proved to be not of 6 but 8 balls, because he crossed the boundary twice and was no-balled. The Afghan batsman hit a six on one of these no-balls. Overall, 4 sixes were hit in this over and overall 31 runs were lost in 8 balls. In this one over, Afghanistan A’s score increased from 104 runs in 12 overs to 135 runs in 13 overs.
Before this, a shocking result was seen in another semi-final match of the tournament. Last year’s champion and contender to reach the final, Pakistan Shaheen (Pakistan A) lost badly in this semi-final. In this match, Sri Lanka A defeated the Pakistani team by 7 wickets within 17 overs and made it to the final. Batting first, Pakistan A had scored only 135 runs and Sri Lanka A achieved this score by losing 3 wickets in 16.3 overs.
