a 93-run \u2060plastering<\/a> of Namibia in a group A contest at Arun Jaitley Stadium.<\/p>\nPut into bat on Thursday, India racked up 209-9 after opener Ishan Kishan (61) and middle-order batter \u2060Hardik Pandya (52) struck rapid half-centuries.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
They returned to bundle out Namibia for 116 in 18.2 overs to register their second successive victory and top the group because of their net run-rate, which is \u2060superior to Pakistan, who also have four points from two games.<\/p>\n
The Asian archrivals will clash in a blockbuster in Colombo on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was a pretty good game for everyone,\u201d India captain Suryakumar Yadav said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not an easy wicket to bat on. The way Ishan and Sanju [Samson] started, it \u200cdidn\u2019t really look like it, but it was a difficult wicket.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Abhishek Sharma, currently the top-ranked T20 batsman, still recovering from a stomach infection, an out-of-form Samson had another opportunity to impress after India were put into bat.<\/p>\n
Samson (22) looked eager to make it count, too. The right-hander smacked three sixes, but frittered away the start and fell in the second over.<\/p>\n
Kishan was given LBW on 11, but the opener immediately reviewed the decision and replays confirmed \u2060he had edged it before the ball hit his pad.<\/p>\n
Namibia wished it \u2060was not the case because Kishan went on to smash JJ Smit for four sixes in a row to race to a 20-ball fifty.<\/p>\n
To make matters worse for Namibia, Louren Steenkamp dropped Tilak Varma (25) when the batter was on \u206019.<\/p>\n
India needed 4.3 overs to reach 50, and their next 50 came off just 14 balls.<\/p>\n
Namibia captain Gerhard Erasmus (4-20) ended Kishan\u2019s 24-ball blitz, and \u2060they managed to apply the brake after the departures of \u2060Varma and Suryakumar (12).<\/p>\n
Pandya, who hit four sixes, and Shivam Dube (23) provided the late flourish to take India past the 200-mark.<\/p>\n
Steenkamp (29) and Jan Frylinck (22) began positively, but Namibia kept losing wickets to drift out of contention.<\/p>\n
For India, a fit-again Jasprit Bumrah bowled \u200cfour tidy overs, claiming the wicket of Ruben Trumpelmann with a trademark yorker.<\/p>\n
Varun Chakravarthy (3-7) was the pick of the Indian bowlers, while fellow spinner Axar Patel and player-of-the-match Pandya claimed two wickets \u200capiece.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter \u200cthe powerplay, we thought dew might make bowling tough, and we had a chance. But that spell from Varun broke the back of our chase,\u201d Erasmus said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ishan Kishan and Hardik Pandya score half centuries for T20 World Cup holders India in 93-run win against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3711,1487,1721,48795,308,54684,50,2321,217,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-422631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-africa","tag-asia","tag-cricket","tag-icc-mens-t20-world-cup","tag-india","tag-namibia","tag-news","tag-pakistan","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}