At the Old Trafford, Manchester, Carnage of the greatest order from skipper Eoin Morgan’s willow saw England’s hosts totally decimate Afghanistan. Many records were smashed as hard as the English captain hit the ball, who registered his first tournament century and perhaps one of the most memorable knocks in his life.
England earlier won the toss and Morgan chose to bat first. Mujeeb Ur Rahman went after the openers and nearly received a reward for it, but James Vince survived the challenge somehow. But for a quickfire 26, he quickly dropped, but Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root only made things worse.
Before launching a brilliant attack, the duo handled the initial threats carefully. Jonny Bairstow finished his half-century and raced to a hundred, but he was stopped by Gulbadin Naib on 90. For the second wicket, Bairstow and Root added 120 runs. That was the last time the Afghans had a real smile on their faces as what later followed was a cyclone that swept away all their morale.
Eoin Morgan smashed the big ones relentlessly and specifically targeted Rashid Khan. It was whack, whack, and whack to all parts, who finished his fifty in the 38th over and achieved three figures in 57 balls in no time. Silently, Joe Root scored another fifty in the background, but he was mostly enjoying the power-hitting from the best seat possible.
It was the cleanest swing that could be witnessed by anyone. As Eoin Morgan hit his way to a 71-ball 148, Rashid recorded the worst numbers in World Cup history by a bowler and the worst by a spinner in ODIs. On his way, he struck 17 sixes, which saw him overtake Chris Gayle, Rohit Sharma and AB de Villiers’ record of 16 sixes in an innings. Root almost scored his third century of the tournament but had to settle down for an 88.
In the end, England recorded 397 runs for the loss of six wickets with some exploits from Moeen Ali. Gulbadin Naib and Dawlat Zadran took three wickets each, but they were obviously distracted by the rate of humiliation on the field.
That was the batting performance of Afghanistan, in a nutshell, many of them would likely have complimented the Asian side for displaying excellent character if they had done it while batting first. But they kept scoring up to the 40th over at less than five, which determines how much quality they lack when it comes to running the scoreboard.
Afghan scored 44 runs off 48 balls, three huge sixes included. After his dismissal, Mohammad Nabi went in and attempted to reduce the defeat margin, but even that was very hard. Hashmatullah’s decent effort of 76 out of 100 deliveries ended up close to a respectable total, but the biggest talking points of the day for the good reasons were Morgan and for the bad ones was Rashid.
Official HIGHLIGHTS of the Match:
