CWC 2019: Shoaib Akhtar feels India dodged a bullet in their narrow victory against Afghanistan

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Image Courtesy: Indian Express

India’s World Cup journey almost got derailed by an unexpected obstacle when they were put to test by a resilient Afghanistan side. In his recent video, Akhtar analyzed India’s 11-run victory and explained how the side dodged a bullet by avoiding a defeat to the lowest ranked team in the competition.

Image Courtesy: Indian Express

The Indian batting performance was heavily scrutinized by fans and critics alike. Shoaib Akhtar expressed his disappointment over the batting display by the side which apparently had no direction. The Rawalpindi Expressed was unhappy MS Dhoni’s painful innings which almost cost them the game. He said:

“India played very well but not too much as they brought Afghanistan back into the game. Indian batting except Virat Kohli was really bad. They miserably failed in spite of having such a famed batting lineup. MS Dhoni played really-really slow. I can understand that there was a bit of awkward bounce in the wicket but still the amount of dots he played cost India. Indian batting was a bit exposed. But India dodged the bullet and it was a good wake-up call for them,

The former pacer also added that there would have been several rumours and speculations fired about the Indian team had they failed to overcome the hurdle. He added:

“I was thinking that if India were to lose that match a lot of speculations and false news would have started to flow which neither you (viewers) want nor me. There would have been a number of question marks over their performance because people are waiting out there to make headlines with different stories. I don’t want to go into the details but you know what I mean,” 

India are currently gearing to take on West Indies next on June 27 in a bid to seal their semi-final spot.

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