AFG vs BAN: India reached the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup 2024 yesterday. The Men in Blue defeated the Mighty Aussies at St Lucia by 24 runs. Alongside Rohit and Co, the Defending Champions, England, South Africa and now Afghanistan are in the top four rankings of this edition of the ICC mega event of the shortest format.
AFG vs BAN: Rishad Hossain’s Three Fer Restricts The Afghans For Just 115 Runs In Their 20 Overs –
The last match of the Super Eight round in the T20 World Cup 2024 was played between AFG vs BAN at Saint Vincent. Afghanistan had already won a match at this venue and that too against a team like Australia. Rashid and Co won that encounter by 21 runs. In today’s must-win match, AFG won the toss and elected to bat first.
The openers of the Afghanistan team who put up a century stand against the Aussies, also did well in this match. Rahmatullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran had shared a century partnership of 118 runs against Australia and in this game as well, they added 59 runs for the first wicket. Despite that, Afghanistan struggled with the bat in hand later in their innings.
That was mainly because the middle order and lower order didn’t fire for them in the two back-to-back matches now. Rishad Hossain was the one who got the breakthrough for the Bangla Tigers with the wicket of Ibrahim Zadran, who was out for 18 runs and then wickets continued to tumble for the men of Afghanistan.
Azmatullah, Gurbaz, Gulbadin, and Nabi were out in quick succession. Gurbaz was the top scorer for his country in this match with 48 runs. But none of the other batters of the Afghanistan side scored even 30 runs. The second-highest score was 19 runs and it was scored by the skipper Rashid Khan.
Rishad Hossain picked up three vital wickets to his name and that’s what allowed Bangladesh to restrict the Afghans to 115 runs for the loss of five wickets in their 20 overs quota. Taskin Ahmed and Mustafizur Rahman also picked one wicket each to their names. Despite bowling so well, Bangladesh failed to chase this score down.
AFG vs BAN: Liton Kumar Das’s Fighting Half Century Went In Vain As Afghanistan Sealed The Semi-Final Berth
Batting has been a huge issue for Bangladesh and that’s why they couldn’t reach the semi-finals of this year’s T20 World Cup 2024. While chasing a score of 116 runs which set earlier and later it was revised due to a small rain interruption, Bangladesh fell eight runs short of that score and that allowed Afghanistan to progress in the semis and knock the Aussies out of this edition of the shortest format.
The opening batter of the Bangladeshi team, Liton Kumar Das was the lone man standing in the run chase of a decent score. While the rest of the batting lineup fell like a pack of cards. Bangladesh continued to lose wickets at regular intervals just like Afghanistan had lost. But the Afghans had a good start to their innings which allowed them to post that decent total on the board in their quota of 20 overs.
Liton Kumar Das scored a valiant half-century, which was his first in the 17 innings of the shortest format. Towhid Hirdoy was the second-highest scorer in this game with 14 runs. Das batted till the end. But he couldn’t see his side through in this run chase and Bangladesh couldn’t even chase down the revised target.
The Bangla Tigers were bundled out for just 105 runs in 17.5 overs and fell eight runs short of the total which was set by the men of Afghanistan. Rashid Khan was the pick of the bowlers from the Afghani side. He picked up 4 wickets and now he has the most four-wicket hauls in the shortest format.
With the skipper Rashid, Naveen Ul Haq also picked up four scalps while Gulbadin Naib and Fazalhaq Farooqi also got one wicket each to their names in this match-winning encounter. Afghanistan reached their first-ever semi-finals of the T20 World Cup history and now they will face South Africa on the 27th morning according to the Indian Standard Time (IST) at Brain Lara Stadium in Trinidad.
Also Read – 7 Batsmen With Most Sixes In A Single Edition Of The T20 World Cup
