World Cup 2023: Solid Afghanistan stay in hunt for semis spot | Cricket

By the start of the Afghanistan’s innings, over 23,000 fans had made their way into the Ekana stadium and and most of them had Afghan flags in their hands. This was the second-highest turnout here after the India-England match, which had drawn in a crowd of 47,000. And they weren’t disappointed.

The outcome of the match was just what the fans wanted as Hashmatullah Shahidi and Co notched up a facile seven-wicket win over Netherlands and stayed in contention for a spot in the semi-finals while sharing the joint fifth position with Australia and New Zealand with eight points.

Afghanistan’s clinical win on Friday will put some additional pressure on Babar Azam and Co, who are currently on six points, ahead of their match against New Zealand at Bangaluru on Saturday as a loss may bring the curtains down on their hopes of advancing.

High in confidence after three wins against higher-ranked teams Sri Lanka, defending champions England and Pakistan, Afghanistan followed the success ‘mantra’ of the chief coach and former England all-rounder Jonathan Trott to play good cricket. Their play has been steady and they just needed to keep doing that.

However, the target of 180 never tested the Afghan batting as they romped home at ease in 31.3 overs. Rahmanullah Gurbaz edged to keeper Scott Edwarads only after scoring 10, whereas fellow opener Ibrahim Zadran made 34-ball 20 with the help of two boundaries. But Afghnistan made light of their loss.

Thereafter, Rahmat Shah and Shahidi played with a straight bat, maintained a scoring rate above five runs per over to convert their wish into results. Shahidi, who remained unbeaten on 56 (64b, 6×4) played second fiddle, keeping his cool with ones and twos before switching gears to hit a few boundaries. Shah, on the other hand, made a fluent 52 (54b, 8×4), hitting boundaries and showing some fine play off the back foot before being caught and bowled by Saquib Zulfiqar.

This was Shah’s third successive half century in the World Cup after scoring a match-winning unbeaten 77 against Pakistan and 62 against Sri Lanka.

Earlier, the Netherlands decided to bat first on a slow track. They lost opener Wesley Barresi in the first over and could score only 179 after playing 176 dot balls in 46.3 overs.

Max O’Dowd and Colin Ackermann stitched together 70-run for the second wicket with the former scoring runs at a brisk pace. But a suicidal run out changed the team’s fortunes.

O’Dowd paddled a sweep towards fine leg and called for two, but a direct throw from Azmatullah Omarzai found the diving batter inches short of his crease. His 40-ball 42, which contained nine hits to the fence, was his best in this World Cup.

A few more bad calls saw Netherlands sink deeper into trouble as two other key batters Ackermann and Scott Edwards too got run out in a similar fashion, leaving the side struggling at 92/4 in the 19th over. Ackermann took on Rashid Khan at mid-off after scoring 35-ball 29 (4×4) and was caught short of his crease while skipper Scott Edwards was run out after his under edge went straight to the keeper.

Engelbrecht (58 off 86 balls) kept things going from the other end before he too was run-out by a throw from Mohd Nabi. His wicket was the last straw and there was simply no coming back from that.