Afghanistan played against Australia in the 4th match of the ICC CWC19 at Bristol on a sunny day.
Australia were the favourites against Afghanistan and they also did win by 7 wickets. Australia played Starc early on, whose pace proved very challenging for Afghanistan, who were not so friendly with it. Both the openers, who would be a key to the batting line, got out quickly.
The middle order of the Afghanistan side was more friendly with the swing and pace and played defensive but kept the scoreboard moving. A sloppy run out brought Australia back in the game, followed by Adam Zampa’s superb ball which seemed to halt the scoreboard after a wicket but Rahmat had done enough damage. Then as the day progressed Gulbadin and Najibullah formed a great partnership and attacked the bowling from time to time but as soon as that partnership broke, wickets came tumbling down but something which proved beneficial for Afghanistan was that after that even the bowlers were looking to do as much damage by hitting boundaries instead of ones and twos which brought in also, some quick runs.
After Afghanistan were able to post only 207 runs, it was almost clear that Australia had it in their bag because spin could not do much damage in Bristol and the required run rate was just above 4 runs per over which was easy enough for Australia.
Australia were very smart to introduce Starc in the first over itself. Australia’s pace attack will be the key to their victories in the CWC19. The asian teams will face problems on grass pitches against pace attacks from New Zealand and Australia. Australia can be more threatening if they tighten their fielding like NZ.
New Zealand have very strong fielding and is perfect for bowlers like Ferguson and Australia’s Starc etc.
Afghanistan need to sort out Shahzad’s batting and Wicket – Keeping. Afganistan should also focus on playing against teams like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who can be the perfect victims for Afghanistan’s attack. Afghanistan have a very strong middle order but players like Rashid need to play it safe while batting because if Rashid gets too excited, he may not time it perfectly enough for the fielder to drop it.
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