Spinners take 8 wickets against listless English batters
October 16, 2023: Following a flurry of one-sided games in the tournament, Afghanistan beat world champions England by 69 runs at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi.
It was England’s second defeat in the first three matches after the drubbing in the World Cup opener against New Zealand. Afghanistan, who had also suffered two defeats against Bangladesh and India earlier, opened its account in the points table with spinners Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi leading the charge.
English captain Jos Butler won the toss and elected to field on a warm afternoon at Delhi. Afghanistan openers made full use of the ground’s relatively shorter dimensions, beautiful batting conditions, fast outfield and ordinary bowling to put on an impressive 114 for the first wicket. The opening stand came in real quick time with Afghanistan going at 7 runs per over and looked well set to score more than 325.
The lack of experience of Afghanistan batters was on display when they stumbled to 190/6 with English bowlers making a comeback and some inspired fielding. It was the rear-guard action and unconventional hitting from Afghanistan's lower order including Rashid Khan and Mujeeb which took them to a respectable total of 284.
Although the track looked fairly good for batting, the spirited Afghanistan team was not going to make it easy for the under-pressure English batting lineup. Having seen their spinners Adil Rashid, Liam Livingstone and Joe Root taking wickets and causing problems in the afternoon, the English batters were surprisingly cautious to start with. The procession started with Farooqi trapping Bairstow LBW early, Joe Root losing his stumps to Mujeeb’s guile on 11 and well-set Malan giving a simple catch to Ibrahim Zadran, to leave England struggling at 68-3 in 12 overs. There was no letup in pressure from there on and Afghanistan spinners combined to take 8 wickets with only one English batter Harry Brook posting some challenge. It was a complete performance from Afghanistan, and they dominated England in all three departments, batting, bowling and fielding.
For England, this defeat will hurt and will look to crisis man Ben Stokes once again to revive their fortunes, with the star allrounder expected to be back for an important game against South Africa in six days.
- Girish, Team Pure Cricket
--------------------------------------
Pics: Internet
Afghanistan is putting the right efforts. Time they should also nurture their next gen, else they would be Kenya of Asia
ReplyDelete