Cricket Highlights, 31 Aug: Asia Cup 2022 – Match 04 (IND vs HK)

IND vs HK (Match 04) – Highlights

India has confirmed the Super Four of Asia Cup 2022 as the second team after Afghanistan. Rohit Sharma’s team became the first team from Group ‘A’ to enter the Super Four after defeating Hong Kong by 40 runs in Dubai to secure their second straight win. Earlier, Indians started this year’s Asia Cup mission by defeating arch-rival Pakistan by 5 wickets in the first match.

Batting first after losing the toss, India scored 192 runs relying on the stormy batting of Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav. In response, Hong Kong’s innings stopped at 152 after losing 5 wickets. Even though they lost, Hong Kong put up a great fight. In the beginning, India was put under pressure by the opposition’s bowlers. Although the pressure could not be kept at the last minute. Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav scored well to rescue the team.

Kohli came to the wicket after an opening partnership of 38 runs from skipper Rohit Sharma (21 off 13 balls) and wicket-keeper batsman KL Rahul. He made a partnership of 56 runs with Rahul. Then Rahul departed for 36 runs. Kohli traveled the rest of the way with Suryakumar.

After the departure of two openers for 94 runs at the end of 13 overs, India did not lose any more wickets. Kohli and Suryakumar made a partnership of 98 runs from 42 balls. The two scored 78 runs in the last 5 overs.

Kohli remained unbeaten on 59 runs after completing his half-century from 40-ball. His 44-ball innings included one four and three sixes. Kohli’s previous half-century was in February this year. That too in this T20I format. He was dismissed by Roston Chase after scoring 52 off 41 balls against the West Indies.

Kohli batted with a strike rate of around 134, but Suryakumar was rampant on the Hong Kong bowlers. This batsman played a whirlwind innings of 68 runs unbeaten off 26 balls, with 6 fours and 6 sixes. Where his strike rate was 261.54. Ayush Shukla and Mohammad Ghazanfar both picked up one wicket for Hong Kong.

Chasing a huge target of 193 runs, underpowered Hong Kong was on the right track. They scored 52 runs after losing 2 wickets in Powerplay. Hong Kong took 17 runs in the sixth over of Arshdeep Singh’s innings. Since then, they have gone on the back foot. After losing 2 wickets at the end of 10 overs, they made 65 runs on the scoreboard. At this stage, India scored 70 runs after losing 1 wicket.

In the end, playing after all the overs, Hong Kong lost 5 wickets and scored 152 runs. Babar Hayat scored the maximum 41 runs for the team. 30 runs came from Kinchit Shah’s bat. Zeeshan Ali and Scott McKechnie fought for reducing the margin of defeat in the end. Between these two, Zeeshan scored 26 runs off 17 balls and McKechnie remained unbeaten on 16 runs off 8 balls.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, and Avesh Khan scalped one wicket each for India. After 10 innings Virat Kohli got his first fifty wearing the Indian jersey but Suryakumar Yadav was adjudged player of the match after playing a devastating innings of 68 runs off 26 balls.

IND vs HK Scoreboard

India – 192/2 (20.0)

Hong Kong – 152/5 (20.0)

Result – India won by 40 runs

Player of the match – Suryakumar Yadav

IND vs HK Playing XIs