Team India emerged victorious in the Hangzhou Asian Games men's cricket final against Afghanistan and clinched the gold medal on Saturday. But, not by virtue of scoring more runs. The Ruturaj Gaikwad-led side won the toss and opted to field on Saturday in Hangzhou and showed and kept Afghanistan batters at check with their dominant spells. However, rain played a spoilsport and the match was halted during the 19th over, with Afghanistan's score at 112/5. After a delay of more than half an hour, the match was called off and Team India was declared the winner.
Why India were declared the winners?
Despite the match getting washed out due to rain, Team India ended up on the winning side and also bagged the gold medal. This happened due to India's higher seeding than Afghanistan at the ongoing Asian games. Based on the seeding position, India emerged victorious. Currently, India are also the No 1 team, as per the ICC rankings, across all three formats.
This was India's 27th gold medal at the Asian Games 2023, which took their total medal tally to 104 (28 gold, 35 silver, 41 bronze).
Talking about the match, put in to bat, Afghanistan were 112 for 5 in 18.2 overs when persistent rain halted the proceedings at the Zhejiang University of Technology Cricket Field, and the match never restarted from that point.
For Afghanistan, Shahidullah Kamal (49*) and Gulbadin Naib (27*) remained unbeaten at the crease. While for India, Arshdeep Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, Shivam Dube and Ravi Bishnoi scalped one wicket each.