England’s World Cup campaign dealt a major upset as Afghanistan thrash them in Delhi

Riding on Rahmanullah Gurbaz’s 80 and Rashid Khan’s bowling, Afghanistan defeated England by 69 runs.

The big upset that the 2023 Cricket World Cup was waiting for has arrived with Afghanistan registering the most famous win in their World Cup history. Playing under the Delhi floodlights, the defending world champions suffered a shock 69-run defeat as the Afghan players came up with a resilient bowling performance.

Going into the World Cup, England had been billed as the likeliest team to quell India’s World Cup dreams on home soil. But all they’ve managed to accomplish so far is ending Afghanistan’s 14-game, eight-year World Cup losing run instead.

Afghanistan’s historic night was set in motion by a ruthless batting performance from Rahmanullah Gurbaz. Move aside, Bazball, Gurbazball had arrived to the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi! The opening batter was fearless and tonked boundaries and sixes for fun off England’s lethal bowling unit.

It seemed like it was only a matter of time that Gurbaz would become the 12^th centurion in the ongoing World Cup. However, an innings that promised so much was unfortunately cut short after a self-inflicted wound and got run out.

However, Ibrahim Alikhil marshalled the innings with a wonderful half-century in the lower order in his first game at this year’s World Cup. Mujeeb Ur Rehman also provided fuel to the scoreboard with a 16-ball 28 and Afghanistan finished with a respectable total of 284. In theory, it was only 12 more than the total that India had made a mockery of in the previous match at the same venue.

Therefore, the onus was on the bowlers to clinch history for the nation and it was with the ball that Afghanistan really came to light.

While the spin unit, helmed by the generational talent of Rashid Khan as well as the rising Mujeeb Ur Rehman, has been their biggest strength, the seam bowlers also came to the party on this occasion. Naveen-ul-Haq and Fazal Farooqi did not get the rewards their efforts deserved, many of England’s boundaries against them coming from edges and mis-hits. However, the highlight of the day arrived when Naveen rocked Jos Buttler’s middle stump and gave his side early advantage.

For England, Dawid Malan and Harry Brook looked the most composed batters on the night but both of them got done in by spin. Malan lost his wicket to Mohammad Nabi while Brook, who was carrying the bulk of the pressure in the lower order as the entire unit collapsed around him, got dismissed by Mujeeb.

The Rashid Khan show was also at its glorious best with batters failing to find gaps in the field off his bowling. Rashid created a lot of pressure by being miserly and finished with an economy rate of 3.89. He also got rid of Liam Livingstone and Adil Rashid.

After the match, Rashid dedicated the famous 69-run victory to the people in Afghanistan who had been rocked by an earthquake recently. "Cricket is the only source of happiness in Afghanistan, recently there was an Earthquake, many lost everything, this will give them some happiness - this is for them," he said.

Cricket has the power to heal and one can only imagine that there will be several such inspiring stories for Afghanistan’s talented generation on the horizon.