Afghanistan bated first on the batting surface of Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, and both openers started off really well with a positive mindset. They attacked England bowlers in the very early stages of the inning. The classy right-handed wicketkeeper, who looked in good touch, attacked England opening bowlers from the very first ball.
Ibrahim Zadran looked a bit rusty and played very slowly, but he formed a beautiful partnership with his partner to put Afghanistan in a strong position. They shared a 114-run stand for the first wicket. Gurbaz was the aggressor through the partnership.
Ibrahim Zadran was caught at short midwicket by Joe Root, and Rahmat Shah could only make 3 runs and got stumped by Jos Buttler. Afghanistan was in a good situation at the time, even after losing two quick wickets.
Their skipper, Hashmatullah Shahidi, played a ball for a single, but Rahmanullah Gurbaz could not make the full ground even with a dive and got run out, ending up missing his very first ton in the ICC World Cup 2023. He scored a brilliant knock of 80 in just 57 at a strike rate over 140.
From that stage, Afghanistan was in trouble because they lost a few wickets very quickly and could not capitalize on the start provided by the openers. They needed a good finish at the end, which they got from another young batter, Ikram Alikhil, who played very sensible cricket. He scored 58 runs on 66 balls and hit two long sixes.
At the back end of the inning, Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Ur Rahman contributed a total of 51 runs, which helped their side put up a respective total for the dangerous batting array of the England team.
0 Comments