ENG vs AFG Match Report: Sam Curran’s super show, England still win by margin
ICC Men’s T20 World Cup England vs Afghanistan Match Report: Afghanistan scored just 112 runs and England took 18 overs to achieve the target.
Image credit source: AFP
The T20 World Cup 2022 to be held in Australia is not proving too good for the title contenders. West Indies have already crashed out of the tournament, while Sri Lanka also suffered a crushing defeat. At the same time, defending champions Australia were beaten by New Zealand in their first match. In the midst of all this, England defeated Afghanistan, the biggest rivals of the championship, but Jos Buttler’s team had to manage just 112 runs to win.
The World Cup Super-12 round matches have started from Saturday, October 22. New Zealand beat Australia by 89 runs in the first match of Group-1. Then the next match in this group was between England and Afghanistan. The match played at Perth’s Optus Stadium proved to be an Everest climb for both teams, dominated by bowlers and loaded with explosive batsmen. England however won by 5 wickets.
Afghan batting flop show
The Afghan batsmen could not stand in front of the record-breaking spell of left-arm medium pacer Sam Curran, who returned to the England team last month after a long injury. The entire Afghanistan team was bowled out for just 112 runs in 19.4 overs. Ibrahim Zadran (32) and Usman Ghani (30) scored the most runs for Afghanistan, but none of the batsmen could play a fast innings.
Great bowling, great fielding
For England, Karan cost just 10 runs in 3.4 overs to send Afghanistan halfway back to the pavilion. Apart from Karan’s 5 wickets, Ben Stokes and Mark Wood also took 2 wickets each. England’s fast bowlers have been greatly helped by the team’s fielders. Liam Livingston, Rashid Khan and skipper Jos Buttler made the team’s task easy with brilliant catches.
Rashid and Co. sweat it out
The score was modest in front of England’s batting line-up full of strong batsmen and it looked like England would achieve the target without too much trouble in very few overs. However, this does not happen. Afghanistan’s pacers held their reins early, then the spin trio of Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi and Mujeeb-ur-Rehman applied such a break that the England batsmen became desperate for runs. Wickets started to fall from that too.
Captain Buttler returned to the pavilion in the powerplay, Alex Hales and Ben Stokes also failed. David Malan stayed at the crease for a long time but Mohammad Nabi’s brilliant catch ended his game. In such a situation, Liam Livingston took one edge and slowly led the team to the goal. England had to wait till the 19th over to get the target of 113 runs.
