Afghanistan beat reigning champions England by 69 runs in the 13th match of ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 in Delhi on Sunday evening.
Delhi saw the major upset of the ongoing global event as England was all out on 215 runs in 40.3 overs while chasing 285 runs target for the voctory.
England kept on losing wickets at crucial stages as Afghanistan spinners managed to put brakes on the run rate, taking eight in the process.
With the exception of Harry Brooks and Dawid Malan, no English batter could make any impact.
Harry Brook was the top scorer with 66 runs followed by Dawid Malan who made 32 runs.
Mujeeb Ur Rehman and Rashid Khan bagged three wickets each and Mohammad Nabi two while Fazalhaq Farooqi and Naveen-ul-Haq took one wicket each.
Mujeeb Ur Rehman was named player of the match for his all round performance.
After put in to bat first by England skipper Jos Buttler, Afghanistan was all out on 284 runs on the penultimate ball of the innings.
Openers Rehmanullah Gurbaz (80) and Ibrahim Zadran (28) provided a solid and quick start with 114 runs partnership.
England bowlers come back strongly by taking three wickets with the addition of just eight runs.
After that, skipper Shahidi (14) and Omarzai (19) also fell cheaply. Ikram Alikhil (58) added valuable runs along with Mujeeb Ur Rehman (28) and Rashid Khan (23) to take the team score to 284.
Adil Rashid bagged three wickets and Mark Wood two while Reece Topley, Liam Livingstone and Joe Root took one wicket each. Two Afghanistan batters were run out.
In the post toss talk, Jos Buttler said that there was no particular reason of fielding first. He said it was a good batting surface and England has fielded an unchanged playing XI.
Afghanistan skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi also wanted to bowl first.
England: 1 Jonny Bairstow, 2 Dawid Malan, 3 Joe Root, 4 Harry Brook, 5 Jos Buttler (capt & wk), 6 Liam Livingstone, 7 Sam Curran, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Mark Wood, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Reece Topley
Afghanistan: 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz, 2 Ibrahim Zadran, 3 Rahmat Shah, 4 Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), 5 Azmatullah Omarzai, 6 Mohammad Nabi, 7 Ikram Alikhil (wk), 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 10 Naveen-ul-Haq, 11 Fazalhaq Farooqi
