Tremors were felt in the Delhi-NCR region of India on October 15, Sunday. But the Arun Jaitley Stadium was lost in a different world and felt totally different kind of tremors.
The first 12 games of the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 all proved to be one-sided games but the 13th game was quite different. An upset, a massive turnaround of epic proportions unfolded at the capital.
Afghanistan faced England, the Afghans, a side which had few expectations going up against the mightiest side of the tournament. England are the defending champions, but Afghanistan didn’t seem to care enough about that tag.
Hashmatullah Shahidi’s side had lost 14 games in a row prior to the game on Sunday, but they tamed Jos Buttler’s men and snapped their losing streak in some fashion.
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Afghanistan batted brilliantly and then rattled England with the ball. It was a rude wake-up call for England, the same English team that had suffered some of the biggest upsets in World Cup history – from the 1992 defeat to Zimbabwe to the epic 2011 reverse against Ireland – England fans were in for another shock.
Afghan spinners Mujeeb ur Rahman and Rashid Khan bagged three wickets each. Mohammad Nabi bagged two important wickets in the middle overs. Fazalhaq Farooqi and Naveen-Ul-Haq on the other hand, bagged one wicket each.
Only 10 days ago, Afghanistan lost around 1000 people and many more were injured.
“When the (earthquake) news broke, straightaway, the players wanted to know, what they could do,” Afghanistan Coach Jonathan Trott had said at the pre-match press conference. While a lot of players decided to donate their match fees, Rashid Khan decided to donate all his match fees from the World Cup to the earthquake-affected people back home.
Englishman Trott had also said that the team’s performance here would definitely “bring joy and happiness” amongst the fans back in their nation. And it rightly did so.
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“Cricket is the only source of happiness in Afghanistan, recently there was an Earthquake, many lost everything, this will give them some happiness – this is for them,” said Rashid Khan after one of the biggest milestones in the sporting history of Afghanistan.
While the money was of utmost necessity, a World Cup win against defending champions England can never be written off, and will forever be etched in the history books of Afghanistan cricket.
From losing to Ireland in 2011, Bangladesh in 2015, Sri Lanka in 2019, and now to Afghanistan in 2023, England have made it a tradition of suffering at least one huge upset every time the World Cup comes around.
Rude wake-up call for defending champions
Afghan openers scored at a brisk rate in the powerplay, after ten overs the scoreboard read 79/0. Rahmanullah Gurbaz alongside Ibrahim Zadran stitched a 114-run partnership. Gurbaz scored 80 runs at a strike rate of 140.35 and looked on course to smash a century. But the greed to steal a quick single caught him short of the crease.
English pacers Chris Woakes and Reece Topley also supported them to settle early on, conceding eight runs of wides in the first five overs. The opening partnership was an early jolt to England.
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The English spinners came as an anti-climax though. Adil Rashid bagged two wickets in his back-to-back overs. Liam Livingstone and Root then picked a wicket each to inculcate a mini-collapse. Mark Wood rattled Mohammed Nabi with his pace and bounce. From 114/0, Afghanistan were stranded at 190/6.
Afghanistan pinned their hopes on Rashid Khan as the all-rounder came out to bat. And rightly so, Rashid hit a flurry of boundaries early on and helped Afghanistan cross the 200-run mark with one of those.
Afghanistan were resilient and went on to stitch partnerships of 43 and 44 runs for the seventh and eighth wicket respectively. This was a second significant jolt to England. A tricky target of 285 was set for England to chase.
In the second innings, each wicket was a tremor as Afghanistan came closer to creating history.
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Afghanistan have been that young and dynamic newcomer who shows a lot of promise from the first day at the office but had failed to do anything significant at a major tournament. But Sunday was their fun day. The newcomers had finally established their place amongst the seniors in the meeting room.
As Rashid Khan knocked off Mark Wood’s stumps for one last time, England were handed a rude wake-up call in their bid to defend their World Cup crown.
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