Afghanistan cricket team started the T20 World Cup with a great victory. Afghanistan won by a huge margin of 125 runs against Uganda in the fifth match of the T20 World Cup. Along with the good performance of the team's batsmen, the team has made this achievement due to the extraordinary bowling of Faizul Haque Farooqi. Such a win in the first match of the T20 World Cup will undoubtedly boost the confidence of the team manifold!
This year, 20 teams participated in the T20 World Cup on the main stage. Afghanistan is one of them. The team is placed in Group D, including the West Indies, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Uganda. Five teams are placed in the group stage, but only two teams will get a place in the top eight. So the battle in Group D will be between Afghanistan, West Indies, and New Zealand. In the end, which team will be the best eight from this group? In response to such a question, the name of the New Zealand team will be the first. However, as the second team, Afghanistan will be ahead of West Indies.
In the first match of the group board, the Afghanistan team entered the field yesterday. The match was held at Providence in Guyana, West Indies. At the beginning of this match, Uganda team won the toss and decided to bowl. Basically, Uganda's plan was to bowl well and restrict Afghanistan to few runs. But in this match between the two teams, the Afghanistan team was ahead from all sides. So Uganda failed to implement their plan!
In this match, two openers Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran made a great start in batting for Afghanistan. They completed the team hundred in the first 10 overs with an extraordinary batting performance. After a record opening partnership in the World Cup, Afghanistan lost their first wicket for 154 runs. Gurbaz scored 76 runs and Ibrahim Zadran made his way to the pavilion after getting out for 70 runs. However, due to batting failure of the next batsmen, Afghans failed to score 200 runs. The team's first innings ended at 183 runs.
Chasing down 184 runs given by Afghans to win was not at all piece of cake for Uganda. Because Afghanistan's bowling line-up has world-class bowling stars. Ugandan batsmen failed completely in this match. The team lost wickets at regular intervals and got all out for just 58 runs. As a result, Afghans got a record victory of 125 runs. Pacer Fazlhaq Farooqi took five wickets with nine runs in four overs for the team. This bowler was selected as the man of the match for his outstanding performance.
Afghanistan team got a good run rate along with valuable two points in the record wins against Uganda. This run rate will put them ahead against West Indies and New Zealand in doubt. Besides, such a performance in the first match will increase confidence in future matches!
