There it goes! You just felt it was inevitable a wicket would fall. Not to anything amazing, but Pandya bowls a slower ball, Najibullah is trying to knock it away for one, but was through the shot early. Leading edge to midwicket, straight to Chahal this time. Now it’s tough for Afghanistan.

41st over: Afghanistan 165-5 (Nabi 26, Najibullah 21) That helps! Shami bowls on the pads and Najibullah plays a lovely whip, away through midwicket. It slows up towards the rope but rolls into it eventually. It also helps Afghanistan when Shami follows with a wide, and then another. One batsman pulls a single, the other steers one, both right and left-hander succeeding when Shami stays back of a length. Najibullah almost pops up a catch to midwicket from the fifth ball, with Shami right-arm over the wicket and in at his ribs, drawing a leading edge from a fend. But Chahal was just too deep to charge in enough.

The equation tightens to 60 in 54. Can Afghanistan finish off a stunner? Will India’s bowling do the job? Bumrah has three overs left, which will be key.

40th over: Afghanistan 157-5 (Nabi 25, Najibullah 16) Pace at both ends with Pandya and Shami. The former has Nabi bolt for a single from a straight drive, then Najibullah calls for a fast second after chipping through the off-side. Good to see some urgency between the wickets, unlike earlier. Najibullah hits the same region for two more, better timed and along the ground this time, then cuts one. So the over yields six runs. They need 68 in 60.

39th over: Afghanistan 151-5 (Nabi 24, Najibullah 11) Shami is bowling superbly today. Tight on off stump, tough length, so even when Najibullah hits is crisply it’s straight to point. But mid-off is up inside the circle, so when Shami gets just a touch fuller, Najibullah rolls the dice. Stands up and drives off the back foot, over the top! Not smashed, but good enough to get him four. Placement spot on. And when Shami reverts to the short ball, it goes just fractionally off line and is called wide for a leg-side infringement. Najibullah flicks a single, Nabi drives one. Eight from the over. The equation is 74 in 66.

38th over: Afghanistan 143-5 (Nabi 22, Najibullah 6) Kuldeep carries on. Nabi takes a couple of singles. Najibullah wants to get moving, tries the reverse sweep again, misses out completely. Survives an appeal as well. They’re just not able to get enough away at the moment, Afghanistan. 83 needed off 72 now.

37th over: Afghanistan 140-5 (Nabi 20, Najibullah 5) Shami comes back and he is on the money immediately. Pace, in at off stump, and Nabi defends and tries to find where the ball has gone and realises it’s right at his feet, nearly squirming past his pad. Then Shami is bowling bouncers, sharp ones, forcing dot balls, forcing fends. One of them yields two runs. Three from the over.

36th over: Afghanistan 137-5 (Nabi 19, Najibullah 3) Kuldeep will bowl now, spin rather than pace. Najibullah Zadran is the new man in. Can bat. Nabi plays a little sweep for a couple, with the spin, then nudges one. Najibullah, left-hander facing left-armer, reverse-sweeps his first ball, striking it nicely for two. A couple more singles follow. They need 88 from 84.

35th over: Afghanistan 130-5 (Nabi 15) Last ball of the over, Chahal gets his man! Nabi had already boshed four through midwicket on the sweep to start the over. Asghar tried to end it by walloping the same way, but he only opens up the gate for Chahal to dart through and take the stumps.

34th over: Afghanistan 125-4 (Asghar 8, Nabi 10) Four singles from Hardik Pandya, just knocked around or pushed straight, as the holding pattern is maintained.

33rd over: Afghanistan 121-4 (Asghar 6, Nabi 8) Surely time for Shami rather than Pandya with the high chance of ropey shots against pace? Chahal bowls spin, and they only get two singles from five, the pressure building. But Chahal throws the last ball out wide and Nabi plays a calm shot rather than a huge swipe, slicing the cut shot along the ground behind point. Four runs.

104 needed from 102.

32nd over: Afghanistan 116-4 (Asghar 5, Nabi 4) Pandya again, kicking off with a wide. Asghar cuts a single, Nabi pulls a double. Then there’s a horror shot as Nabi tries to smash over cover, but that ball was never full enough for the stroke and it takes a huge outside edge. Loops high over backward point, but two fielders converge and the man running out puts off the man running in. Neither of them go for it, and it drops between them. Two runs and a massive slice of luck for Nabi.

“Any clues on why Kohli hasn’t been turning to Kedar Jadhav as extensively in the World Cup as he was in their tour of Australia and NZ?” asks Kanishk Srinivasan. “He’s unorthodox, but I feel like he could be a great go-to as a street smart, blink-and-you-miss-it bowler who has the goods to take key wickets every now and then.”

I’m guessing that the aforementioned tours were a chance to let Jadhav bowl a fair bit, as with Shankar, to see if he could handle it and to let him get settled in that role. Then he can be called upon if needed. But here today, pace has got the rewards, especially the short ball. Whereas the spinners have been handled, even if they haven’t been expensive.

31st over: Afghanistan 110-4 (Asghar 4, Nabi 0) Chahal is doing a fine job in the deep, belting around again at fine leg to tumble and save Asghar’s leg glance from Bumrah. Two runs. A short ball makes Asghar flinch, but he’s able to play it down into the pitch. Bumrah is getting up towards 150 kilometres per hour. But his yorker doesn’t get through Asghar, and his bouncer gets pulled for one. Still taking on the short ball.

115 needed from 114 balls. Here comes the tipping point.

30th over: Afghanistan 107-4 (Asghar 1, Nabi 0) Asghar Afghan, formerly Asghar Stanikzai, gets moving immediately, driving Pandya to deep cover for one. But Nabi wants to take his time, resisting the wide ball, defending the straight ball.

29th over: Afghanistan 106-4 (Asghar 0) Last ball of the over takes the second wicket, and Mohammad Nabi will be out next. So it’s a case of starting from scratch for him and Asghar Afghan. They need 118 from 126. Treat it as an easy T20 total with a couple of batsmen missing?

Two in three balls! The batsmen crossed when Rahmat was out, so Bumrah has got both set batsmen in an over. Short and at the body, Rahmat was hopping as he played it, no control, and it just popped off the splice far enough for Bumrah to run forward in his follow-through and dive.

There’s that breakthrough. Another half-hearted pull shot, another top edge. Another ball that might drop short, but Chahal charges in from the deep to take it diving forward. Now the heat will start to turn up for Afghanistan.

28th over: Afghanistan 106-2 (Rahmat 36, Hashmatullah 21) Once again Hashmatullah can’t get spin bowling away. He top-edges Kuldeep for a lucky couple of runs, but swings and misses well outside off stump a couple of times. One of those might have been a wide as it turned away, left-arm wrist spinner to left-handed batsman, but it probably turned more after it passed the batsman.

27th over: Afghanistan 104-2 (Rahmat 36, Hashmatullah 19) Bumrah returns, with Kohli starting to need a wicket now. I still firmly believe he’ll get one soon, and Afghanistan will fall over. But dreams must live while they can. Kohli wrestles with the classic captain’s angst about whether to have a slip, and decides not to. So Rahmat deliberately edges through slip, hoping for four but third man is fine enough to keep it to one. Hashmatullah drives a single for Afghanistan’s hundred. Rahmat gets a tiny top edge to a slower ball but it falls short of Dhoni. Interesting whether they umpire would have given that if that catch had been taken. Rahmat takes a couple of runs next ball thanks to a misfield at backward point, then has two runs saved when he pulls to fine leg and Kuldeep dives well. Six from the over

26th over: Afghanistan 98-2 (Rahmat 31, Hashmatullah 18) This is better stuff from the batting pair. A couple of singles from Kuldeep to start the over, just keeping things moving. Then with the right and left handers swapping over, Kuldeep doesn’t get his line quite right and drops short. Rahmat has the composure to go back and pull, top shot, hitting hard and into the gap at midwicket. Two sweepers converge but it pings between them, the placement spot on.

127 to win from 144.

25th over: Afghanistan 91-2 (Rahmat 25, Hashmatullah 17) That’s the second time today that Dhoni has given it the big ones for a stumping appeal when the foot never left the crease. Hashmatullah was always safe. Strange stuff. This comes just after the batsman carves away a cut shot backward of point from Chahal, splitting the field for four.

24th over: Afghanistan 87-2 (Rahmat 25, Hashmatullah 13) Lots of air for Kuldeep Yadav, he’ll keep challenging the batsmen all day long. They pick up three singles. Afghanistan need 138 from 156 balls, that gap narrowing for India all the time.

23rd over: Afghanistan 84-2 (Rahmat 24, Hashmatullah 11) That’s another shabby over from Afghanistan. Chahal lands his leg-breaks nicely, but Hashmatullah just blocks out four of them, no thought of angling the bat to find a run. Then when he finally whips a full ball to the deep, they stroll one run instead of hustling for two. You can’t afford more overs that go for one run.

22nd over: Afghanistan 83-2 (Rahmat 24, Hashmatullah 10) Thank you very much, says Hashratullah, as Kuldeep Yadav bowls the kind of bad ball that will come along eventually. Dragged down short, and the batsman is good enough to rock back and smash it through midwicket for four. A few singles make it seven from the over. They need five per over and they’re still at less than four.

21st over: Afghanistan 76-2 (Rahmat 23, Hashmatullah 4) Pandya is going full aggression. The field is mostly in, with men back on the hook. So Pandya keeps using that short ball, and no one can do anything with it. Finally, to end the over, he goes full. Somehow Rahmat Shah anticipates that, coming down the wicket and driving through cover for four! Glorious shot, into the gap beautifully.

20th over: Afghanistan 71-2 (Rahmat 19, Hashmatullah 3) A couple of singles down the ground from Kuldeep, then Rahmat cuts the ball hard but Pandya at cover dives to stop it. At least some intent in that stroke. Rahmat settles for another single. Hashmatullah gets an inside edge onto his pad, misreading the turn, then sweeps a fuller ball for one. There’s your four from the over.

19th over: Afghanistan 67-2 (Rahmat 17, Hashmatullah 1) Ouch! Pandya hits Hashmatullah in the ribs with the last ball of this over. The bowler got annoyed because the batsman bailed out before the ball was bowled. So Pandya went back and banged it in. It didn’t get up, but the batsman was expecting more height, and couldn’t protect his own body. That’s a maiden. This pair are playing into India’s hands, doing this. They have a long batting line-up today, but they have to score at a reasonable clip so there’s less pressure on whoever comes in next. Just four an over or so.

18th over: Afghanistan 67-2 (Rahmat 17, Hashmatullah 1) The new batsman plays to type, blotting out an over of Kuldeep Yadav before working a single. His team now needs 158 from 192. They don’t want to let that climb up past a run a ball, they have to keep finding singles and moving things along.

Romeo emails in. “I don’t think it can be said often enough, but the last time these two sides played each other it was a tie. Genius experts on TV seem to tell Afghanistan how to play as if they were children. A lot of respect is required from commentators of all sorts, as is knowledge and understanding.”

Not just tying with India, but Afghanistan beat Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and ran Pakistan to the second-last over from memory, in that Asia Cup.

17th over: Afghanistan 66-1 (Rahmat 17, Hashmatullah 0) The TV broadcast is showing Dwayne Leverock’s catch against India as part of a Great World Cup Moments kind of series, which is a particular irony given that the wealthiest boards in cricket have ensured that smaller teams never got the chance to play in this World Cup. Afghanistan barely had a team back in 2007, and here they are now.

Well, that was unnecessary from the captain Gulbadin. He and Rahmat were comfortably scoring with the glide to third man, the cut shot. They didn’t need anything big. Hashmatullah Shahidi is another sensible cautious type of batsman, and he could be just the one to combine with Rahmat Shah.

The short ball does it! Pandya comes back after taking some tap earlier, perhaps just to help the spinners swap ends, but he gets rewarded. Gulbadin can’t resist the pull but only gets a high top edge to deep square leg.

16th over: Afghanistan 61-1 (Gulbadin 26, Rahmat 13) Same pattern, as Gulbadin gets an early single, and there’s a dot ball as Rahmat misses a sweep and Dhoni convinces the umpire to go upstairs and check a stumping. The back foot never moved. Rahmat finally gets off strike with a drive to long-off. With that man back, Gulbadin gets away with a mistimed loft that bounces in that direction for one more. Then a gorgeous delivery from Kuldeep to end the over – I think that was his wrong ‘un, and it zipped past the outside edge of the right-handed Gulbadin and so nearly takes the off stump. Drinks.

15th over: Afghanistan 57-1 (Gulbadin 24, Rahmat 11) That’s a couple of times that Rahmat has missed out now. He’s getting marooned against these spinners, and even when Chahal bowls a filthy full toss to end this over, Rahmat smears it along the ground straight to mid-on. That after Gulbadin almost feathered a cut shot behind. One run from each of the last three overs, all to Gulbadin, and Rahmat has faced 13 scoreless deliveries.

168 needed from 35 overs.

14th over: Afghanistan 56-1 (Gulbadin 23, Rahmat 11) Double spin now. Kuldeep Yadav comes on with his left-arm wristies. Gulbadin goes after him immediately, dropping back to pull hard with the turn out to deep midwicket. One run to the boundary rider, and that’s all again as Rahmat takes his time against the new bowler, only advancing once but yorking himself on that occasion.

13th over: Afghanistan 55-1 (Gulbadin 22, Rahmat 11) Gulbadin looks much more comfortable now, driving a single first ball. Rahmat gets tied down by Chahal though, frustrated when he skips down to play a big cover drive but hits it straight to Kohli on the bounce. Kohli throws at the stumps and hits Rahat in the back, and the “Oh no!” expression on Kohli’s face is priceless. He apologises. Rohit Sharma comes up to pat the batsman on the bruise and make sure all is well. One run from the over.

A reminder that Sri Lanka made only 201 in Cardiff but bowled out Afghanistan for 152. This sort of total is not remotely a stroll, especially in these tricky conditions.

12th over: Afghanistan 54-1 (Gulbadin 21, Rahmat 11) Pandya is the weak link in the bowling, and here he goes. A dodgy single squeezed from Rahmat past the stumps, but then a clipped brace for Gulbadin, a thwacked four from a length ball, and a meaty pull for four again. Mid-on drops back, midwicket comes close. Gulbadin taps square to keep the strike. The fifty is up.

171 more required, at 4.5 an over. Afghanistan are scoring at… 4.5 an over.

11th over: Afghanistan 42-1 (Gulbadin 10, Rahmat 10) Shot! Rahmat leans back to Chahal and smacks him over midwicket! That man is inside the circle, and this pull shot cleared him easily. Long-on comes around to try to save, but his trailing foot is touching the rope. Again that was sloppy running from Afghanistan, they would only have got two if that had been saved, where it should have been three. Instead they get four. And then Rahmat skips down again, confidently, to drive a single from the leg-spinner. That part of his game I like a lot.

Jason, I’ve got another American cricket lover for you. You and Aaron can start a support group.

10th over: Afghanistan 37-1 (Gulbadin 10, Rahmat 5) Pandya comes on early as well, Kohli looking to get his all-rounder into the game. Rahmat plays the simple glide again, Gulbadin skews a ball towards midwicket but it bounces short. Pandya sees weakness and tries a bouncer, but it goes wild and clears Dhoni for four. Wides, not byes, so the keeper won’t be punished for that one. Then a couple more flicked behind square leg from Gulbadin – it should have been three but they were expecting it to make the boundary.

9th over: Afghanistan 29-1 (Gulbadin 8, Rahmat 4) Spin starts early. Yuzvendra Chahal’s leg-breaks to begin with. He’s not afraid to flight the ball immediately, and Rahmat Shah isn’t afraid to come down the pitch for a single immediately. One of three collected from the over.

8th over: Afghanistan 26-1 (Gulbadin 7, Rahmat 2) Immediately things look calmer with Rahmat Shah out there, as he just opens the face and runs a Bumrah delivery to third man for one. Gulbadin clips through midwicket from a fuller length and picks up three, then Rahmat is clipped on the back of his shoulder as he tries to duck a short ball that didn’t get up too high. Gets a leg bye for his trouble.

“Good day!” writes Jason Cammarata. “American cricket fan here (we exist, though I’ve yet to meet another who is native born) just expressing my thanks for your wonderful and witty coverage. My best friend is from Bangladesh, and I was lucky enough to be in Dhaka when the Tigers upended India in 2007. I can still smell the burning trash and fireworks from the street celebrations, which the caretaker government turned a blind eye to as they were giddy as the rest of us. Since then I’ve been under the game’s spell, and obviously rooting for the Tigers… and for Afghanistan to pull off a similar miracle today.”

7th over: Afghanistan 21-1 (Gulbadin 4, Rahmat 1) The ball before he gets out, Hazratullah just works a straight ball away to midwicket and comes back for a well-run two. The next, he shoots for the moon and like most such attempts, he misses. He’ll score more runs with the former method than the latter, and his team don’t need that many today. Very poor cricket. In comes Rahmat Shah, probably Afghanistan’s most accomplished long-innings type of batsman. He’s got a few hundreds in this format, and they need something near enough to that from him today.

There it goes! It has looked inevitable since the start. Shami has been monstering Hazratullah outside off stump. So when he finally bowls straighter, Hazratullah goes for broke. He really only has one shot, which is over midwicket. And he tries that to the length ball, but Shami’s pace is too much. The batsman misses and loses his stumps. That’ll make the bails come off.

6th over: Afghanistan 18-0 (Hazratullah 8, Gulbadin 4) Was that the dook? Half duck, half hook, as Gulbadin tries to bail out of his chosen shot halfway through Bumrah’s short ball. It takes a thick top edge and lobs back near the bowler, but not quite close enough. Gulbadin, spooked, has a huge swing at a full ball and misses it entirely, nearly losing his off stump. He also earlier in the over hit a full toss straight to midwicket and didn’t score. He started the tournament batting at No8 and perhaps he should have stayed there. But with Mohammad Shahzad sent home injured, Gulbadin has promoted himself to fill that spot.

Aditya writes in from Mumbai. “When the West Indies won the World T20 in 2016, the only game they lost all tournament was against Afghanistan. Also, the only game the Afghans won in the entire group stage was against West Indies, the eventual champions. Afghanistan beating India today is all we need to lift the cup. Surely history will repeat itself. Just saying.” It’s only logical.

5th over: Afghanistan 16-0 (Hazratullah 8, Gulbadin 2) Hazratullah gets off strike first ball to Shami, which is probably a relief for Afghanistan. Just nudges to leg. Gulbadin tries to hook a short ball but misses. He picks up two leg byes from a ball going well down leg. They’re unconvincing but they’re not out, these two, and that’s all that really matters for the time being. See out these dangerous overs.

4th over: Afghanistan 12-0 (Hazratullah 7, Gulbadin 1) The Afghan skipper Gulbadin gets off the mark by punching a single to cover. He might want to spare his young teammate the bowling though, because he’s almost getting out every ball now. Feeling for Bumrah outside off and missing. Feeling again and edging! Past slip! Kohli has two in, and that goes through third slip for four. Then another grope at thin air. And finally managing a mistimed punch to cover to get off strike, before Gulbadin is squared up from the last ball and nearly nicks. This is some exhibition of opening bowling in tandem.

3rd over: Afghanistan 6-0 (Hazratullah 2, Gulbadin 0) I don’t think this one-on-one is going to last long. Hazratullah aims another booming cut at Shami but misses. Then doesn’t even get the chance to play a shot, as Shami zings one off the seam that cuts away and keeps climbing from a decent length. Then fuller, hitting the pad to provoke that DRS review. But somehow Hazratullah survives the over. Kohli isn’t happy that they’ve lost that review, he had a long conversation with the umpire I think asking why it wasn’t umpire’s call as to where it pitched, with such a fine margin. Well, if it’s missing that zone, I guess it’s missing.

Stand by. Shami wanted it desperately, he appealed backwards all the way down the pitch. Kohli asked the bowler, but knew bowlers aren’t objective. Dhoni gave supporting evidence so Kohli goes for it. And it’s missing the inside edge, hitting in front of middle, stone dead… except that Shami was over the wicket to a left-hander, and the ball pitched a couple of millimetres outside leg stump. Not out, and India lost their review.

2nd over: Afghanistan 6-0 (Hazratullah 2, Gulbadin 0) There’s a bonus! Bumrah bowls a beauty that cuts back in and saws Hazratullah in half. But it goes over the stumps, bounces in front of Dhoni, and the keeper can’t stop it rolling away for four byes. Bumrah follows with a low full toss, just missing the yorker, and Hazratullah squeezes it to backwards square for one run to the sweeper.

1st over: Afghanistan 1-0 (Hazratullah 1, Gulbadin 0) And those aren’t good early signs for Afghanistan. No ability to time the ball off this slow surface. Hazratullah is the trump card for the Afghans, if he can smash a quick fifty in the way he can, and get them a headstart on this chase so the others can grind out the rest. But it doesn’t look likely in the first over, as he swings and pokes and prods and misses Shami’s bowling about four times. Only makes contact when he fends a short ball, and when he reaches for a single to third man.

Over lunch, here’s a beef from Jonny Heyhoe. “Anyone else tired of the constant sycophancy towards India’s players by pretty much anyone on commentary?” he wonders. “Whenever I watch them there’s constant brown-nosing, everything is brilliant and no criticism is ever voiced. Dhoni has just clogged up an end, forward defence back to spinners with seven overs to go and ended with a strike rate of about fifty. Not a word against him. The Sky Sports commentary team would be shredding England for a performance like this. Barely a word either for the fantastic bowling by the Afghans.” I did hear some praise for the bowlers, but you’re right about Dhoni getting a pass. For the real story, you’ll just have to stick with the OBO. And with that, it’s over to the award-winning Geoff Lemon. Thanks for your company and here’s to a glorious win for Afghanistan.

50th over: India 224-8 (Kuldeep 1, Bumrah 1) Gulbadin sticks with seam – I can almost hear him muttering “Told you so!” – and it pays off as his slower ball twice brings a wicket. In between, there are runs, but only five of them. So the two seamers end up with combined figures of 16-1-105-3, pricey but not toothless, and the four spinners with 34-0-117-5. All four of them bowled well on a surface that was deliciously slow and sticky, like a song by Marvin Gaye.

Among the batsmen, Virat Kohli was in a league of his own, not so much reading the conditions as transcending them. His 67 came off only 63 deliveries, whereas nobody else got near a run a ball. But he will be fretting a bit now, and asking himself how many part-time spinners he can rustle up as reinforcements for Kuldeep and Chahal. Leaving out Jadeja could prove expensive.

Another one! Slower ball again, and Jadhav manages to hit it, but only straight to extra cover.

Well, Gulbadin is a seamer but this ball is a spinner – a slower ball that hits leg stump some time after Mohammad Shami goes for a big mow.

49th over: India 219-6 (Jadhav 49, Shami 1) So well bowled Aftab, who goes for a respectable six off the over.

I take it all back. In a stroke of genius, Gulbadin tries seam at both ends. Aftab bowls a bouncer that would be a wide if Pandya wasn’t set on flicking it over the keeper. At last, we have a wicket falling to a seamer. And we’re down to that tail!

48th over: India 213-5 (Jadhav 47, Pandya 4) Gulbadin seems to be a Brexit supporter: he sees something going abysmally and persists with it anyway. He brings himself back on, which is like Dominic Raab thinking he should be prime minister. His over goes for seven, not too bad, but worse than almost any over of spin today.