Indian cricket team fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah is a huge fan of Premier League side Manchester United and he pulled out a special celebration during the Cricket World Cup 2023 match against Afghanistan on Wednesday. Bumrah provided the first breakthrough for India as he dismissed Ibrahim Zadran and he followed it up with a celebration that has become synonymous with United footballer Marcus Rashford. It was a short of the length delivery from Bumrah and Zadran ended up edging it straight to KL Rahul behind the stumps. Bumrah pointed his finger towards his temple - same way that Rashford celebrates.
"I had no intentions of making it viral or spreading it everywhere," Bumrah told the ICC Digital Insider on Sunday.
"It just came to my mind. I'd seen Rashford do it as well. I thought it was cool. There's no particular big back story behind it. At the end I decided to do it.
Earlier. Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi won the toss and decided to bat.
India are coming into this match after sealing a six-wicket win against Australia. Afghanistan lost against Bangladesh by six wickets in their previous game.
India captain Rohit Sharma said there is one change in the team.
"We were looking to bat second. We saw the amount of dew last evening. Don't think the wicket will change much. Need to bowl well and need to come back and bat better. We were under pressure to start with (in previous game) but KL and Kohli batted well, we take a lot of pride. It was a good game for us, hopefully, we can repeat that and keep the momentum going forward. Ashwin misses out, Shardul Thakur comes in for him," Rohit said.
Afghanistan playing XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (Wk), Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi (C), Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Naveen-ul-Haq, Fazalhaq Farooqi.
India playing XI: Rohit Sharma (C), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (Wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj.
(With ANI inputs)