Today, Afghanistan soundly defeated the Netherlands to continue its impressive run and stay alive for a possible semifinals appearance.
On Tuesday, I wrote about Afghanistan’s Cinderella run in the ongoing Cricket World Cup. The Afghan national team defeated defending World Cup champion England as its first upset. Then, it defeated cricket powerhouse and national rival Pakistan and followed that up by beating Sri Lanka as well. Today, Afghanistan soundly defeated the Netherlands to continue its impressive run and stay alive for a possible semifinals appearance.
The Cricket World Cup is played in the one-day international (ODI) format. Test cricket, the highest form of the game, can take up to five days. Cricket matches are divided into overs, each containing six balls. In ODI, each side is limited to 50 overs. That ensures a winner is decided in one day. The World Cup includes ten teams in a round-robin format, with the top four teams advancing to the semifinals.
In the last World Cup in 2019, Afghanistan lost every match it played. This was the first World Cup after Afghanistan attained Test status from the International Cricket Council in 2017, making it one of only twelve countries allowed to play Test cricket. Since then, the Taliban overthrew Afghanistan’s government, and the country has suffered a deadly earthquake. The Afghan national team still plays under the pre-Taliban flag and several players have donated their World Cup match fees to help with earthquake recovery.
In today’s match, the Dutch team won the coin toss and elected to bat first, and the Afghan defense was prepared. Bowler Mujeeb Ur Rahman dismissed the Dutch opening batsman, Wesley Barresi, on only the fifth ball of the match. The next three Dutch batsmen all had respectable innings but were each run out by Afghanistan. The fifth batsman, the Dutch captain Scott Edwards, was run out for a duck (the cricket term for being dismissed after scoring zero runs). This was the first time in the history of men’s ODI cricket that four of the top five batsmen were run out.
Afghan wicketkeeper Ikram Alikhil helped with three of the four run-outs, took two catches, and stumped one batsman (tapping the wickets with the ball after a delivery when the batsman is outside his crease), thereby playing a role in six of Afghanistan’s wickets, an impressive defensive performance. The best bowling performance in the match came from Mohammad Nabi, who took three wickets and conceded only 28 runs. Rashid Khan, who played in Major League Cricket in the U.S. earlier this year, also bowled well, giving up only 31 runs in ten overs (the maximum any one player is allowed to bowl in an ODI match) and not conceding any boundaries (shots worth four or six runs, similar to a ground-rule double or home run in baseball). All told, Afghanistan dismissed the entire Dutch side and held them to only 179 runs. Mid-to-high 200s is usually a decent score for ODI.
Afghan opening batsman Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who has been excellent this tournament, had a hiccup when he was caught out after scoring only ten runs. But the rest of the Afghan batsmen continued what they’ve been doing so well this tournament: maximizing every scoring opportunity throughout the innings without taking major risks. Afghanistan only needed five batsmen and 31.3 overs to score 181 runs and surpass the Netherlands’ score. Rahmat Shah and captain Hashmatullah Shahidi each scored half-centuries and combined for 14 boundaries. The burgeoning partnership between Shahidi and Azmatullah Omarzai, who contributed 31 runs, was cut short by the end of the match.
Afghanistan does not control its own fate in the tournament, needing other teams to lose if it is to advance to the semifinals. Afghanistan has four wins and three losses. After an undefeated India and a 6-1 South Africa, there’s now a logjam in the standings, with Australia, New Zealand, and Afghanistan all tied with four wins. Ties are decided by net run rate for the entire tournament, which Afghanistan would lose because its losses were much worse than New Zealand or Australia’s losses.
Tomorrow, Australia plays England, a match it is likely to win, and New Zealand plays Pakistan, which should be more evenly matched. If Pakistan beats New Zealand, it will also have four wins and keep its semifinal hopes alive. Afghanistan’s two remaining matches are against Australia and South Africa, and they are the underdogs in both. It might be the end of the line, but if Afghanistan can pull of at least one more upset, it could make the semis and continue its stunning run.
“I lost my mother three months ago, so my family is in pain,” Shahidi said after the Netherlands match. Advancing to the semifinals “would be a big achievement, first of all to our country and then to my family also,” he said. “Right now a lot of refugees are struggling. We are with them in this tough time, I dedicate this win to refugees who are in pain.”