West News Wire: Afghanistan shocked everyone by defeating the reigning champions, England, by 69 runs at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023.
After winning the toss and requesting that Afghanistan bat first on Sunday, England collapsed for 215 runs in front of the three spinners from Afghanistan.
Thanks to opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz’s explosive 80 runs off 57 balls and wicketkeeper Ikram Alikhil’s half-century, the underdogs set a goal of 285 runs for England.
With the help of spinners Rashid Khan (23) and Mujeeb Ur Rahman (28) Afghanistan managed to set up a competitive score and give their bowlers the freedom to go all out against the England batsmen.
Boasting a powerful batting line-up England were handed an early loss when left-arm pacer Fazalhaq Farooqi dismissed opener Jonny Bairstow in the second over.
From then on, Afghanistan’s spinners took over as off-spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman bowled out Joe Root for 11 runs and Mohammad Nabi dismissed Dawid Malan for 32.
England captain Jos Buttler was dimissed for nine runs by pace bowler Naveen-ul-Haq.
Star leg-spinner Rashid Khan added to England’s woes by dismissing Liam Livingstone and Adil Rashid.
Harry Brook put up a resistance with his 66-run innings, but fell to Mujeeb in the 35th over to send England reeling at 169-8.
England lost the tournament’s opening match against New Zealand by nine wickets but beat Bangladesh by 137 runs.
Afghanistan lost both of their matches badly, first by eight wickets against the hosts India and subsequently by six wickets against Bangladesh.
