Asia Cup 2018: India and Afghanistan match ends in a thrilling tie 

India finished the Super 4 stage with a thrilling tie against the emerging Afghanistan side played at the Dubai International Stadium, Dubai on Wednesday. On the back of a brilliant 124 by Mohammed Shehzad and a quick-fire 64 by Mohammed Nabi, Afghanistan posted a decent total. Despite KL Rahul and Ambati Rayudu's superb opening wicket partnership, India kept losing wickets, but Jadeja's good knock almost took the Men in Blue to victory.

Afghanistan captain Asghar Afghan won the toss and decided to bat first. Shahzad got the team off to a flying start, smashing the inexperienced Indian new ball bowlers, namely Khaleel Ahmed, Deepak Chahar, and Siddarth Kaul. Afghanistan raced to 63 runs in the first 10 overs. Shahzad reached his half-century off 37 balls.

Ravindra Jadeja got the breakthrough dismissing the other opener Javed Ahmadi for just 5 off 30 balls. Shahzad and Ahmadi added 65 runs for the first wicket. Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav took 3 wickets in quick succession to put Afghanistan in trouble at 82 for 4. However, Shahzad continued his aggressive intent and added 50 runs for the 5th wicket with Gulbadin Naib. Eventually, Chahar picked up his first ODI wicket dismissing Naib.

Shahzad reached his century off 88 balls and along with Mohammad Nabi, added 48 runs for the 6th wicket. In the end, Kedar Jadhav dismissed Shahzad for a brilliant 124. With Afghanistan 180 for 6, Nabi and Najibullah Zadran put pressure on Indian bowlers with some clean hitting adding 46 runs for the 7th wicket with Najibullah Zadran.

The experienced Nabi completed his half-century off 45 balls and Zadran played some good strokes against Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja. Khaleel then dismissed Nabi for quick fire 64 off 55 balls. In the death overs, India bowlers did not allow Afghanistan batsmen to score runs easily. Afghanistan posted 252 for 8 in 50 overs. For India, Ravindra Jadeja picked 3 wickets, Kuldeep Yadav 2, Deepak Chahar, and Khaleel Ahmed and Kedar Jadhav picked up 1 wicket each. The wicketkeeper-batsman Shahzad was the top scorer with 124.

Chasing 253 to win, Indian openers KL Rahul and Ambati Rayudu got the team off to flying start with both batsmen putting pressure on the Afghanistan bowlers, scoring 64 runs at the end of 10 overs. Rayudu and KL Rahul continued to play with a positive intent, with the former reaching his half-century off 43 balls. Mohammad Nabi dismissed Rayudu for a well made 57. Both Rayudu and Rahul added 110 runs for the opening wicket in just 17.1 overs.

KL Rahul also reached his half-century off 55 balls after which he was dismissed by Rashid Khan. Dinesh Karthik came to the crease at number 3 and looked positive with his batting. From 110 for 1, India were reduced to 166 for 4 . MS Dhoni and Manish Pandey were dismissed for 8 runs each.

Karthik and Jadhav added 38 runs for the 5th wicket before the Afghan bowlers picked up the wickets of Dinesh Karthik and Kedar Jadhav in quick succession to leave India at 205 for 6. Ravindra Jadeja and Deepak Chahar added 21 runs for the 7th wicket before Alam got the wicket of Chahar for 12.

Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav put on 16 runs for the 8th wicket before Yadav and the next batsman Siddarth Kaul were dismissed in the same over. With 7 runs needed off the final over, Jadeja smashed a boundary off the 2nd ball of Rashid Khan bowling while Khaleel Ahmed took a single off the 4th ball. With India needing 1 run to win from 2 balls, Jadeja tried to hit a big shot and was caught on the boundary.

The match ended in a thrilling tie with India being bowled out for 252 in 49.5 overs .

For Afghanistan, Alam, Rashid Khan, and Nabi took 2 wickets each while 3 Indian batsmen were run out.

Bangladesh will take on Pakistan in a virtual semi-final to be played at Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.