T20IWC : Afghanistan shock mighty Australia to open up Super8 stage, seamers steal the show

 

Afghanistan inflicted a shock defeat to mighty  Australia by 21 runs to sent shockwaves in the ongoing  T20I world cup   Rashid Khan & Co won the Super Eight match in T20 World Cup and thus extracted sweet revenge for their loss from winning situuation against the Aussies in the last ODI world cup  .  Australia batting was nothing short of a disaster in the face of the Afghan bowling attack.  Pat Cummins' hat-trick was in vain .  Batting first, Afghanistan scored 148 runs for 6 wickets.  In reply, Australia's innings ended with 127 runs in 19.2 overs.

 Australian captain Mitchell Marsh won the toss and decided to field first which was a surprise one since Afghanistan with their skilful bowling attack is a dangerous team when defending targets  .  Marsh decision did not work.  Afghanistan's two openers made a glorious partnership of 118 runs.  Rahmanullah Gurbaz scored a dazzling 60 runs off 49 balls.  He hit 4 fours and a six.  The other Afghan opener Ibrahim Zadran played a solid innings of 51 runs off 48 balls.  6 fours came from his bat.  This pair essentially put Afghanistan in the driver's seat.  The next batters of Rashid's team, however, did not get many runs as they had a collapse.  The third highest score for Afghanistan was Karim's  13 off 9 balls.

 Pat Cummins caught fire with the ball towards the end of Afghanistan's innings.  Afghanistan captain Rashid was dismissed by Cummins in the last ball of the 18th over of the Afghan innings.  That was his third over.  Australian captain Marsh gave the ball to Cummins in the 20th over.  At that time, Afghanistan were 141 for 4.  Cummins dismissed Karim and Gulbadin Naib in the first two balls of the over.  Cummins picked up 3 wickets in three balls in a row.  Completed the hat trick.  He became the first cricketer in the world to score multiple hat-tricks in T20 World Cup.

Cummins took 3 wickets for 28 runs.  He is Australia's most successful bowler.  Adam Zampa took 2 wickets for 28 runs.  1 wicket for 19 runs by Marcus Stoinis.

 Australia went into bat with a target of 149 runs to win.  But none of their front-line batsmen could capitalize on Afghanistan's bowling attack. The Afghan seamers found good movement off the pitch and Aussies struggled big time .  Two openers Travis Head (0) and David Warner (3) returned quickly.  Marsh also did not get going after a promising start  (12). It was again Glenn Maxwell who alone fought with the bat for Australia like he did in that famous ODI World cup game at Mumbai during his magical 201.  This time again Maxwell looked dangerous as he was playing  another superb innings and probably the memories of that evening at Mumbai may have been flooding in for the Afghan players but finally Noor took a blinder at point to remove Maxwell for  59 runs off 41 balls to the extreme relief of the Afghan fielders .  Stoinis made 11 runs off 17 balls and got out cheaply .  None of the others like David , Wade or Agar could score double-digit runs.  Australia also could not bat the entire 20 overs.  Their innings ended before 4 balls when Zampa was dismissed to the sheer joy of the Afghan team . 

 It was a domination of the seamers as Afghanistan's most successful bowler Naib took 4 wickets for 20 runs against Australia.  3 wickets for 20 runs was taken by  Naveen Ul Haque who took the crucial wicket of Head in the opening over to set up the game for Afghanistan.  Mohammad Nabi took 1 wicket for 1 run.  1 wicket for 10 runs was taken by Azmatullah Omarzai.  Rashid Khan got 1 wicket after spending 23 runs.

Now Afghanistan will need a win over Bangladesh and hope that India beat Australia for them to reach the semis . Aussies have now made things difficult for them as now they have to beat in form India to reach the semis .