India's Ravichandran Ashwin, without cap, celebrates with captain Virat Kohli after dismissing Afghanistan's Najibullah Zadran, right, during the Cricket Twenty20 World Cup match between India and Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021.
Following India's all-around performance in a 66-run victory over Afghanistan on Wednesday in T20 World Cup Super 12 match in Abu Dhabi, Virat Kohli said Ravichandran Ashwin's return was a big positive in the win.
The veteran spinner picked two wickets on the night and kept Afghanistan batters in check in the middle overs while defending 210/2.
"The return of Ash (is the biggest positive), we saw him doing well in the IPL and when he does this, we get to control in the middle overs. That's what I'm most pleased about (today)," Kohli said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
It was also a welcome performance from Indian batters after two top-order failures in the last two matches. Rohit Sharm (74 runs off 47 balls) and KL Rahul's (69 off 48) added 140 runs for the opening wicket before Rishabh Pant (27* off 13) and Hardik Pandya (35* off 13) took India past 200 runs by the end of 20 overs.
Kohli felt the performance was a combination of the batting-friendly pitch of Abu Dhabi and the fact that they discussed how important it was to gain momentum early.
"Much better wicket to be fair. We spoke about the fact that in the other games, if we just had two overs of free-flowing batting, then that sends a message to the opposition that we are going to put you under the pump. When we do that, we know how we can play," Kohli said.
Speaking of promoting Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya up the order before him, Kohli said it was an instinctive decision as the format demands so.
"T20 cricket is a very instinctive game, in batting, bowling and decision-making. We do make decisions on the go. Top three is mostly settled unless situations like today when the openers batted all the way through and the power-hitters were ready. We don't always decide early to go hard, but we do back ourselves and when we do get going, we know what we can do," he said.
