Athiya Shetty, Anushka Sharma celebrate KL Rahul, Virat Kohli partnership in World Cup 2023 opener

Athiya Shetty with KL Rahul, Anushka Sharma with Virat Kohli

Proud wife Athiya Shetty on Sunday night lauded her husband KL Rahul's splendid knock in the ICC Cricket World Cup opener against Australia. Taking to Instagram, Athiya shared a video on her stories which she captioned, "Best guy ever," followed by a red heart emoticon.

She also shared a picture and hailed Virat Kohli and KL Rahul's performance in the match.

An icey and calm partnership between Virat Kohli and KL Rahul helped India manage to secure a six-wicket victory over Australia at Chennai's Chepauk stadium to kickstart their ICC Cricket World Cup campaign with a win.

Anushka Sharma also took to her Instagram stories and dropped a blue heart sharing a picture of Kohli-KL partnership.

Australia lost Mitchell Marsh for a duck, but opener David Warner (41 in 52 balls with six fours) and Steve Smith (46 in 71 balls with five fours) helped the Aussies recover with their 69-run second-wicket partnership. Marnus Labuschagne (27) tried to take the Aussie innings forward with Smith, but following Smith's dismissal, Australia faced a collapse.

The spin trio of Ravindra Jadeja (3/28), Kuldeep Yadav (2/42), and Ravichandran Ashwin (1/34) wreaked havoc on Australia's line-up of recognized batters while the pace trio of Jasprit Bumrah (2/35), Mohammed Siraj (1/26) and Hardik Pandya (1/28) removed the lower order, sinking Australia from 110/3 to 199 all out in 49.3 overs. Mitchell Starc (28) tried to help the Aussies play the full quota of 50 overs, but he failed.

In the chase of 200, India lost Ishan Kishan, skipper Rohit Sharma, and Shreyas Iyer for ducks, leaving India at 2/3. Then a 165-run stand between Virat (85 in 116 balls with six fours) and KL Rahul (97' in 115 balls with eight fours and two sixes) helped India secure a six-wicket win. Josh Hazlewood (3/38) was the best bowler for Australia.

(with inputs from ANI)