The Afghanistan cricket team made a big upset in the ongoing ICC ODI World Cup 2023 as they defeated England in a match which was played yesterday at Arun Jaitley Stadium, New Delhi. Though Afghanistan is reckoned as a rising force in the cricket world at present, nobody expected Afghanistan to defeat the defending champions by 69 runs.
England has lost 2 out of the 3 matches that it has played as earlier it lost the tournament opener against New Zealand but this defeat against Afghanistan will certainly affect England’s campaign in an adverse manner.
After the match, the England skipper Jos Buttler asserted that he is highly disappointed as they wanted to put up a good performance but they were outplayed by the Afghanistan squad which totally deserved to win the match.
Talking about the match, Jos Buttler said England bowlers started poorly and he praised the Afghanistan opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz who batted pretty well and scored 80 runs (57 balls, 8 fours & 4 sixes) to give his team a good start.
Jos Buttler accepted that it was a big setback but he also believed that his team will show character and resilience and will make a comeback.
As far as the match is concerned, the toss was won by England and it decided to put Afghanistan to bat first. The Afghanistan openers Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran (28 runs, 48 balls, 3 fours) produced a partnership of 114 runs for the first wicket and prepared the platform for a good score. England bowlers kept taking wickets on a regular interval but useful knocks by Ikram Alikhil (58 runs, 66 balls, 3 fours & 2 sixes), Rashid Khan (23 runs, 22 balls, 3 fours) and Mujeeb Ur Rahman (28 runs, 16 balls, 3 fours & 1 six) helped Afghanistan in putting up a total of 284 runs on the scoreboard in 49.5 overs.
In response, the defending champions got all out at the score of 215 runs in 40.3 overs as England batters were not able to show any resistance to the disciplined bowling of Afghanistan bowlers. The highest scorer for England was Harry Brook who scored 66 runs (61 balls, 7 fours & 1 six) and the Player of the Match was Afghanistan’s Mujeeb Ur Rahman.
This was the first ODI World Cup win for Afghanistan and now all the other teams will take the Afghanistan squad more seriously than ever before.