New Delhi: Hashmatullah Shahidi-led Afghanistan earned a historic moment with an 8-wicket win over Babar Azam’s Pakistan in match 23 of the ongoing edition of the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 at the M Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, on October 23. After a great outing with the ball and then the fifties from Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, and Rahmat Shah helped their team secure this famous win over their Asian rivals.
Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first. Abdullah Shafique and Babar Azam smashed fifties but it was the 40-run knocks from Shadab Khan and Iftikar Ahmed that helped the Men in Green put 282 runs on the scoreboard. Opener Ibrahim Zadran received the Player of the Match award for his match-winning 87-run knock that made the chase look easy. Afghanistan managed to chase the total with 8 wickets and 1 over remaining.
This was Afghanistan’s first-ever win over Pakistan in ODIs and it came on the biggest possible stage. Pakistan’s skipper was disappointed and said this loss was hurtful. He blamed their bowling and fielding for the embarrassing loss.
“This hurts us. We had a good total. In the bowling, we weren’t up to the mark as we are not taking wickets in the middle overs. If you are not good in even one department, then you’ll lose the game. We didn’t stop boundaries and gave away runs, that cost us,” said Babar Azam in the post-match presentation.
“Bowling – we started well, in the middle overs, we needed wickets but we couldn’t take any. All credit to Afghanistan the way they played in all three departments. That’s why they won. We are not playing good cricket in bowling and fielding. We’ll try our best in the next match. We didn’t hit the lengths in the middle overs, especially our spinners. We couldn’t put pressure on the batters,” he added.
Prior to this edition, Afghanistan only had one win in the 50-over World Cup that too over Scotland and in the 2023 edition of the ODI World Cup, the Afghan Lions have managed to pull off massive upsets over teams like England and Pakistan.
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