Asian Games Cricket Final: Final lost due to rain, India got gold medal

 

 IND vs AFG Asian Games Cricket Event Final: India has won the gold medal in the cricket event of 2023 Asian Games. The final match played against Afghanistan on Saturday (7 October) could not be completed due to rain and later India got the gold medal due to being the higher ranked team in the competition. 

At the time when the match was stopped, the Afghanistan team, batting first, had scored 112/5 in 18.2 overs, in which Shahidullah Kamal was playing with 49 runs in 43 balls and Gulbadin Naib was playing with 27 runs in 24 balls. Even if the rain had stopped, the Afghanistan team was still in trouble. In such a situation, perhaps no injustice was done to them because the Indian team played brilliantly throughout the tournament and they deserved to win the gold.

With this gold, India has increased its number of gold medals in the Asian Games and if we talk about cricket, now India has completed the double by winning gold medals in both men's and women's categories. After winning the toss, Indian captain Ruturaj Gaikwad asked the Afghan team to bat first. Afghanistan did not bat that well and kept losing wickets, but a strong 60-run partnership between Gulbadin Naib and Shahidullah Kamal for the 7th wicket gave them a chance to get back into the match.

The playing eleven of both the teams for this match was as follows.

India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Tilak Verma, Washington Sundar, Shivam Dubey, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeeper), Shahbaz Ahmed, Ravi Bishnoi, Ravishrinivasan Sai Kishore, Arshdeep Singh.

Afghanistan: Zubaid Akbari, Mohammad Shahzad (wicketkeeper), Noor Ali Zadran, Shahidullah Kamal, Afsar Zazai, Karim Janat, Gulbadin Naib (captain), Sharafuddin Ashraf, Qais Ahmed, Farid Ahmed Malik, Zaheer Khan.