At a ground where the team’s batting second won maximum of the games, Pakistan won the toss and asked India to bat first in Manchester in the world cup clash on Sunday. Indian opening pair of KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma put up a 136 run stand for the first wicket to set it up nicely for India. Rohit went onto notch a match turning innings of 140 runs well supported by Virat Kohli who played a blistering innings of 77 runs to help India finish at 336/5 after the end of 50 overs, despite losing wickets in the death overs.
Defending a mammoth target of 337 runs, India lost Bhuvneshwar Kumar early as he was ruled out of the game after just bowling 2.4 overs in the innings. The rain spoil the play in the 47th over of the first innings after which the outfield and the bowling crease became squashy.
In the fifth over of the innings, Bhuvneshwar Kumar pulled his hamstring after landing on the wet bowling crease. He later walked off the ground which turned out to be a big blow for the Indian team. Later it was revealed that he won’t take the field.
Injury concerns a bad news for India
After the injury of Shikhar Dhawan that ousted him from action for three weeks and the current injury of Bhuvneshwar Kumar has brought some concern for the Indian team management. Team physio Patrick Farhart, coach Ravi Shastri and batting coach Sanjay Bangar were spotted talking together and they soon send out a message to Virat Kohli that Bhuvneshwar Kumar won’t be available for the further part of the game.
The team management took precautionary measures to prevent any further injury concerns for the team as Bhuvi is a key prospect for the men in blue. However, hamstring injury can rule a player out of action for several weeks and in this situation, Mohammed Shami will replace him in the next game against Afghanistan.
