Australian team’s dream of qualifying for the T20 World Cup 2022 semi-finals took a nosedive despite them defeating Afghanistan by 4 runs in their last Group 1 Super 12s match in Adelaide on November 4, 2022.
Australia needed to beat Afghanistan by a huge margin to make it into the top 4 and was given an opportunity to bat first and post a huge total on the board after Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi won the toss and chose to bowl first.
Australia made three changes as Tim David and Aaron Finch failed to get fit in time and Steve Smith and Cameron Green came in for them. Mitchell Starc also sat out for Kane Richardson, while Matthew Wade captained the side. Afghanistan also made two changes- Omarzai and Fareed were replaced by Rasooli and Naveen Ul Haq.
However, Afghanistan bowling kept Australian batting in check as they managed only 168/8 in 20 overs with Glenn Maxwell scoring 54* in 32 balls, while Mitchell Marsh with 45, and David Warner and Marcus Stoinis with 25 each were the other scorers.
Naveen Ul Haq picked 3/21, while Fazalhaq Farooqi took two wickets.
In reply, Afghanistan got off to a flyer with Rahmanullah Gurbaz making 30 in 17 balls. Ibrahim Zadran with 26 and Gulbadin Naib with 39 tried to keep up with the required run rate, but Australian bowlers made a good comeback with Adam Zampa taking 2/22 in the middle overs.
Then when there was no hope left, Rashid Khan swung his willow and made 48* in 23 balls and almost making the Afghan fans believe in the impossible. He hit 3 fours and 4 sixes as Afghanistan finished 164/7 and lost by just 4 runs.
Thanks to this result, New Zealand became the first team to qualify for the semi-finals and Sri Lanka was knocked out of the race. For Australia to make it into the final four, they need Sri Lanka to beat England or rain washing out the Sri Lanka-England match.
Meanwhile, the cricket fraternity was all praises for Rashid Khan for his entertaining innings and lauded him on Twitter.
Here are the tweets:
