Suryakumar Yadav and Virat Kohli starred with the bat, setting it up for a comfortable 40-run win for India against Hong Kong in Dubai on August 31.
Yadav demonstrated his fluent best in India’s second encounter at the tournament, striking an unbeaten 68 off 26 to lift India to 192/2 in the allotted 20 overs after they were put in. He struck six fours and as many sixes during his blitz, with four of those maximums coming in the final over of the innings bowled by right-arm quick Haroon Arshad.
Earlier, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma added 38 in 4.5 overs for the opening stand, before the latter fell for a brisk 21 to Ayush Shukla. Rahul struggled for 36 off 39, despite striking two sixes and was dismissed by all-rounder Mohammad Ghazanfar after a 56-run stand with Virat.
Kohli, too, appeared scratchy against spinners first up, but lifted the scoring thereafter, striking three sixes and a four in an unbeaten 59 off 44. However, it was the second-ranked T20I batter Suryakumar, who stole the show at the back-end.
Hong Kong didn’t have the best of starts, with opener Yasim Murtaza falling to Arshdeep Singh in the second over of the chase, while skipper Nizakat Khan got runout on a free-hit, courtesy of Ravindra Jadeja’s brilliance at backward point.
Babar Hayat (41 off 35) and Kinchit Shah (30 off 28) contributed, but the required rate kept soaring upwards, as spinners Jadeja and Yuzvendra Chahal conceded just 33 runs from eight overs between them.
Zeeshan Ali (26* off 17) and Scott McKechnie (16* off 8) struck boundaries at the back-end, but that could only help in reducing the defeat margin.
Hong Kong will play Pakistan in the final Group A fixture in Sharjah on Friday, and the winner will progress to the Super Four round.
Brief scores
India 192/2 in 20 overs (Yadav 68*, Kohli 59*, Ghazanfar 1/19, Shukla 1/29) beat Hong Kong 152/5 in 20 overs (Hayat 41; Jadeja 1/15) by 40 runs.
