In what was an historic match yesterday, Afghanistan strutted its stuff for the first time in a World Cup. The Afghans took on Bangladesh in front of an enthusiastic crowd at Manuka Oval in Canberra and according to a tweet from the US Embassy in Kabul, won the game after only 10 overs. Cricket can be confusing for people new to the game and American government agencies have now marked this tweet for redaction.
Afghanistan didn’t win of course but managed to do some good things with the ball holding Bangladesh to 4 for 119 after the 30th over. Mushfiqur Rahim (71) teamed up with Shakib Al Hasan (63) to put on 114 runs off 93 balls for the fifth wicket. Shakib also became the first player from Bangladesh to hit 4,000 one-day runs. Bangladesh went on to score a defendable 267 after being bowled out by Afghanistan (in the 50th over mind you!).
Unfortunately the Afhgans generally good work with the ball did not translate to the bat. Within the first 3 overs 3 wickets fell for just 3 runs, including 2 in 2 balls. The rest of the innings showed up the continuing work needed to be done by the Afghan batsmen after they ended the game with 105 run deficit.
But hey, everyone has to start somewhere right?
