Australia became victorious by four runs against Afghanistan in a nail-biting and highly intense contest at Adelaide Oval in Adelaide on Friday. Australia’s slimmest of margin victory has soared their hope to go into the semi-final, but it will be finalized after tomorrow’s England vs Sri Lanka match. Australia posted 168/8 in 20 overs, and they stopped AFG at 164/7 in 20 overs.
With the win, Australia got two points benefit in the points table and they are standing in the second position in the points table with 7 points (-0.173 NRR), New Zealand is on top with 7 points (+2.113 NRR) after taking over Ireland.
If England loses tomorrow’s match, then Australia would get a pass to the semis otherwise their today’s win would go into vain.
Coming to the match, Afghanistan’s Rashid khan was right at the end and produced some fireworks with his blistering 48 off just 23 balls. However, they fell short by four runs. On the other hand, Matthew Wade and Co. had other things in their mind like the mere matter of qualifying for the World Cup Semi-finals.
The pressure showed throughout the game. During their batting innings, they looked like they will be able to make 200 runs when Glenn Maxwell (54 off 32 balls) and Marcus Stoinis (25 off 21 balls) were batting together but they collapsed in the third ball of 16 th over facing Naveen-ul-Haq’s deliveries. Stoinis went pavilion as fifth loss for Australia.
In their bowling innings, after a substantial partnership between Gulbadin Naib 39(23) and Ibrahim Zaidan 26(33), Australia bought themselves back into the game at one stage Afghanistan was 101/5. However, the pendulum swung again when Rashid tonked a few. All in all, another timid performance by the Aussies has put their semis chances in Jeopardy. Sri Lanka has to beat England tomorrow at SCG for Australia to go through or else that’s that for the defending champions.
AUS vs AFG Super-12 brief scoreboard:
AUS- 168/8 in 20 ov (won by 4 runs)
AFG- 164/7 in 20 ov
