Given the situation in the country and their arduous journey in cricket,there is a temptation to treat the Afghanistan team with sympathy. But with the gap between a top cricketing nation and an associate side far too wide to bridge,it was only pity that Afghanistan could win on Saturday as India defeated the upstarts by seven wickets without much of an effort to start their World T20 campaign in style. The match was done and dusted with 31 balls to spare,and with that,Team India shook off the rust. MS Dhoni's side did well to take the game with complete commitment,while their win has nearly made sure that India advance to Super Eight stage,dimming in relevance their game against South Africa on Sunday. India's opening bowlers Praveen Kumar and Ashish Nehra justified skipper Dhoni's decision to bowl first by outsmarting the opposition with swing and length variations. The simple set piece of a full length ball followed up by a bouncer worked,as five out of eight wickets fell to that ploy,with Dhoni latching onto four easy mistimed lobs behind the wicket. The bowlers gave a good account of themselves without exerting too much,with only Zaheer going for few extra runs and Harbhajan returning wicketless. Man of the Match Nehra dismissed the top three batsmen while Praveen returned in his second spell to rattle the middle-order. Ravindra Jadeja was his usual miserly self as Dhoni used Yuvraj and Pathan sparingly for an over each. The latter went for 12 runs in his only over but otherwise the Indian bowling looked good as they restricted Afghanistan to 115 With the batting line-up stuffed with stroke-makers,Gautam Gambhir didn't make the most of his opportunity as he fell for just four runs,but Murali Vijay made the most of his last minute entry into the squad with a powerful 46-ball 48. Sticking to their regular batting order - rather than attempting to hurry things up for a quick finish - Yuvraj played the sheet anchor role with a 22-ball 23,while Dhoni wrapped things up with two consecutive massive hits. Noor Ali hits fifty Afghanistan may have been beaten convincingly,but they did earn some respect of the opposition. Noor Ali,who opened the innings,displayed the temperament to rub shoulders with the best in the business with his half-century,even though his team-mates were dismissed cheaply around him. The Afghanistan innings was held together with a fourth wicket stand of 68 between Noor and Asghar Stanikzai. Stanikzai did enough to justify stories of his big-hitting abilities with 30 runs that was studded with three big sixes. Left-arm paceman Shahpoor Zadran was nippy,while showing the potential to hustle a few top-quality bats around the world. Afghanistan will only get better with time,while India will take on South Africa with a greater sense of understanding of the local conditions,and after a good degree of warming up.
