After losing to New Zealand at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Wednesday, October 18, Afghanistan will play Pakistan, who lost their last match against Australia.
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The match against New Zealand
In the last match, Afghanistan was encounter with on of the strongest team in Cricket – New Zealand. Mujeeb Ur Rahman gave AFG a flying start after their win and invited New Zealand to bat first in their World Cup encounter in Chennai on Wednesday. He trapped Devon Conway LBW for 20(18). However, the shielding layer is slightly off-color. Will Young and Rachin Ravindra were dismissed early in the innings before Azmatullah Omarzai scored two wickets in the first over to cause a minor loss. AFG fielded an unchanged line-up while New Zealand brought in Young to replace Kane Williamson, who had to retire due to a broken left thumb.
After impressing defending champions England with 69 runs, Afghanistan are looking to make it two consecutive wins against New Zealand in the friendly against Chepauk. On the other hand, New Zealand came into the competition after a dominant win over Bangladesh. The Kiwis maintained their 100% record with victory over Afghanistan. With the victory, New Zealand also climbed to pole position on the World Cup rankings.
After many try hard, in the end the Blue team still can’t change the result: they have lost and New Zealand won the match by 149 runs.
Highlight of the match
There is some highlight in the match between AFG vs NZ at Chepauk:
- Afghanistan won the toss and chose to field.
- New Zealand accumulated 43/1 in the first powerplay.
- Will Young marked his second consecutive half-century at the World Cup.
- The Black Cap Team reached 105-1 in the first 19 overs.
- From 109/1 to 110/4 – New Zealand suffered a minor defeat in 22 overs.
- Tom Latham and Glenn Phillips contributed respective half-centuries to help New Zealand reach 288/6.
- Trent Boult and Lockie Ferguson shared 5 points as AFG lost 8 points for 138 points in 34 overs.
- Ferguson and Mitchell Santner took three wickets each as AFG finished for 139 in 34.4 overs.
- Spinner Mitchell Santner completed a hundred wickets in ODIs.
- Kane Williamson missed the match because a fractured left thumb.
- Afghanistan stunned England by 69 runs in the previous match.
- New Zealand have now won four consecutive matches at the ODI World Cup.
After the match, The Afghanistan captain – Hashmatullah Shahidi have some words:
“I am really disappointed. At this level, you have to make those types of catches. In the end, Saint, those catches hurt us. Because of that, we felt a bit disappointed.
[On the decision to bowl first] You can’t judge the pitch 100%. In the first innings, the ball also rotates slowly. We bowled well but fielding was a concern.
We still have more games to come. Next is Pakistan. We will try to improve and come back stronger in that match.”
Encounter Pakistan – A challenge to Afghanistan
On the next match, PAK vs AFG match will be played on Monday, October 23, 2023 at 4:30 pm and will be held at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. This will be a Challenge to The Blue Team, Pakistan are not a very strong team but the 5th position on the points table speaks volumes. If AFG wants a chance to reach the semi-finals, this is an important match for them.
“Afghanistan will do everything to reach the semi-final” – said by some Afghans Fan.
Otherwise, in the last 2 matches, Pakistan showed their very high performance by winning 2 matches in a row. And the green shirt team very desire to reach semi-final. Dinesh Karthik, an Indian cricketer said:
“Pakistan must to win the match against Afghanistan to reach semi-final“
Therefore, Pakistan has shown very well its desire to reach the semi-finals, so AFG must prepare and show their best to face them. This will be a match worth watching at the ICC World Cup..
The match will be streamed live on Ekcricket, which has the fastest and highest resolution for maximum satisfaction, otherwise it will streamed on Disney+ Hotstar and Star Sports Network on TV.
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