India go into Super Four smashing Nepal by 10 wickets

Indian skipper Rohit Sharma and his fellow opener Shubman Gill hit fifties as their team sealed a thumping 10-wicket victory over Nepal at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium, Kandy on Monday to quality for the Super Four stage.

The opening pair made an unbeaten partnership of 147 runs during a rain-hit clash.

Earlier, Nepal were invited to bat first, the Rohit Paudel-led unit came up with a valiant effort of 230 runs. Nepal were off to a good start but could not accelerate in the manner they would have liked to in the middle overs and towards the end.

Wicket-keeper batsman Aasif Sheikh scored 58 off 97 balls at the top of the order, even as his opening partner Kushal Bhurtel blazed away to a 25-ball 38 before rain halted play for one hour.

Gulsan Jha, Dipendra Singh Airee, Sompal Kami added some notable runs in the lower middle order where they scored 23, 29 and 48 runs respectively.

Mohammed Siraj and Ravindra Jadeja were the picks of the bowlers from the Indian side as they bagged three wickets each. Mohammad Shami, Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur picked up one wicket each.

In reply, India were 17 for no loss in 2.1 overs when rain stopped play. After that, a revised target of 145 through the DLS method was set for India in 23 overs.

The Men in Blue chased down the required total with 17 balls to spare with Rohit smashing 74 in 59 balls, while Gill hit a 62-ball 67.