BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS: When genius takes over, you'll have to stand, watch and applaud. This Indian team, desperate to break their 17-year T20 World Cup jinx, has that abundance.
On Thursday, it was the turn of two Mumbai boys - Suryakumar Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah - to take over at the Kensington Oval. There was more than a sturdy resistance from Afghanistan, who threatened to make a match of it, at least in the first half.
But over two sessions, 'SKY' and Bumrah showed why they are absolute masters of the format as India made a superb start to their Super-8 campaign with a 47-run win.
Let's talk about Bumrah first. When the first over goes for 13, 182 can look chaseable even on a pitch where the ball was stopping and turning a bit. But not when Bumrah is around and the opposition batting lineup lacks the cutting edge of, let's say, Australia.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz is a known name on the Indian circuit plying his trade for IPL champions KKR, and he had struck a couple of beautiful blows against Arshdeep Singh in the first over. But Bumrah (3/7), right in his second delivery, took the pace off the ball and induced a nick off Gurbaz that took the life out of the Afghanistan chase in the second over itself.
Bumrah, using the angles beautifully and hitting the perfect spots, had opener Hazratullah Zazai soon after and it was all but over. In his first two overs in the Powerplay, Bumrah got 2/5 and all Afghanistan managed in the first six was 35-3.
Following that, it was over to Kuldeep Yadav (2-32), playing his first game of the World Cup ahead of Mohammed Siraj, Ravindra Jadeja and the rest as India completed a walk in the park.
Before Bumrah got into his act with the ball, it was his Mumbai Indians colleague who showed why he has been the best T20 batter in the world for the last two years. With the wily Rashid Khan (3-26) in his elements and India's famed top-three of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant not making a significant contribution, it had to be Surya who had to come to the rescue.
He is a master on these tracks, as he himself said during an interaction with the press on Tuesday. He knows how to deal with the slowness, how to get the ball into the gaps, and how to use his wrists to generate power. The beauty of Surya is that he is ready to run like a man possessed as well when the boundaries are not easy to come by.
The 33-year-old proved to be the "game changer" that he wants to be in this World Cup. He found an ally in Hardik Pandya (32 off 24 balls), who looked really good with the bat after a long time.
The Surya-Hardik partnership yielded 60 off six overs, one straight six by Hardik that crashed into the glass pane of the press-box being the standout. The way Surya was going, one felt he could have got a few more than the 28-ball 53, but a top-edge in the 17th over brought an end to a special knock.
This is an innings, though, the versatile right-hander will look back with a plenty of fondness, if something truly memorable yields from this World Cup sojourn in 10 days' time at the same venue.
