New Delhi: In the second match of the tri-series played in Dambulla, Sri Lanka, the game of nature overshadowed Team India. Despite a huge score of 349 runs built on the back of a strong performance by the Indian batsmen, Afghanistan ‘A’ was declared the winner by 4 runs due to repeated rain in the match and the mathematics of Duckworth-Lewis (DLS) rule. Due to which the Indian team had to face its first defeat in this series.

Team India put a big score on the board

The Indian team looked ahead on every front in the match, but due to the sudden stoppage of the game due to rain, the match had to be decided on the basis of the most complex rules of cricket. The Indian A team, which came to bat first after losing the toss, had a very aggressive start. Young batsman Vaibhav Suryavanshi gave express speed to Team India by playing a quick inning of 44 runs in just 22 balls in the initial overs. After this, wicketkeeper-batsman Prabhsimran Singh took charge. He played an inning of 84 runs in 69 balls, which included 14 powerful fours.

Then vice-captain Rituraj Gaikwad and captain Tilak Verma showed their class. Both the batsmen scored brilliant half-centuries and contributed 66-66 runs. In the end, with the help of Suryansh Shedge’s explosive 40 runs, India scored a huge score of 349 at the loss of 9 wickets in 49 overs.

Duckworth-Lewis spoiled India’s game

The weather changed after the end of the Indian innings. The game was stopped for a long time due to heavy rain, due to which the overs were cut short. Afghanistan’s A team got the task of scoring 294 runs in 38 overs to win. In reply, Afghanistan had a steady start. After opener Hasan Isaakhil was out after scoring 34 runs, captain Imran Mir scored unbeaten 75 runs and Bahir Shah scored unbeaten 51 runs and did not give any chance to the Indian bowlers to dominate. Both of them made an unbroken partnership of 108 runs for the third wicket.

When Afghanistan had scored 177 runs by losing 2 wickets in 25.5 overs, torrential rain started once again in Dambulla. When the game was stopped for the second time, the minimum number of overs required to give an official result to the match had been played. According to the Duckworth-Lewis rule, Afghanistan’s par-score after 25.5 overs should have been 173 runs. At the same time, Afghanistan had scored 177 runs by that time, hence they were 4 runs ahead of the par-score and were declared the winners.