South Africa vs Afghanistan Highlights, Cricket World Cup 2023: Aiming to cement their place in second position, South Africa are currently chasing 245 runs vs Afghanistan, in their final 2023 World Cup league stage fixture, at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Friday. Rassie van der Dussen is headlining …Read More his side’s chase, and is tryng to win a partnership with Andile Phehlukwayo. Van der Dussen also bagged his 15th ODI fifty. The Proteas had a bright start, but some Afghan spin magic saw their openers Quinton de Kock (41) and Temba Bavuma (23) lose their wickets. Meanwhile, Rashid Khan also struck twice to remove Aiden Markram (25) and Heinrich Klaasen (10).
Initially, Afghan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi won the toss and chose to bat first. However, Keshav Maharaj slowed things down after the first 10 overs. He got the breakthrough by dismissing Rahmanullah Gurbaz off his first ball. Gerald Coetzee then sent back Ibrahim Zadran, who had scored a century in Afghanistan’s previous match and Maharaj then got Shahidi’s wicket. Afghanistan continued to sink but Rashid Khan managed to stand with Azmatullah Omarzai as the latter scored a half century. The stubborn stand ended with Rashid nicking behind the stumps off Andile Phehlukwayo. Omarzai carried on with the tail and pushed Afghanistan to a score of 244. However, he missed out on what would’ve been a well deserved century, ending up unbeaten on 97 off 107.
Afghanistan are level on points with Pakistan and so they still had the slimmest of mathematical chances to make it to the top four on paper. But their net run rate is so poor that the fact that they didn’t score over 500 runs batting first has led to them being officially knocked out. For all means and purposes, Afghanistan were knocked out of the World Cup when they ended up at the receiving end of one of the greatest innings of all time in the history of international cricket. Afghanistan seemed to have it in the bag against Australia, reducing them to 91/7 defending a target of 292. Then, they committed the cardinal sin of giving Glenn Maxwell a couple of extra lives and topped that off with some rank bad bowling. This was all coupled with miraculously clean ball striking from Maxwell despite not being able to move any part of his body below the waist.
However, they shouldn’t forget what they have done in this tournament because a freakish innings like that. Afghanistan had just two wins in the World Cup before this tournament. Now, they have added three more by beating former champions Sri Lanka, Pakistan and England. They have shown that they are far more than just their star-studded spin attack and they are far more than just a team of T20 players.
Now, they end their campaign with a match against South Africa, who have sealed a spot for themselves in the semi-finals but are still licking the wounds that was inflicted on them by India. Their batting and bowling prowess amounted to nothing as the dominant hosts went about dismantling them and they crashed to a 243-run loss.
Here are some pointers pertaining to the SA vs AFG World Cup 2023 match:
– Afghanistan have won the toss and chosen to bat first
– South Africa kept Afghanistan down in the middle overs with periodic wickets
– Azmatullah Omarzai led Afghanistan’s resistance with his third half century of this World Cup
– Omarzai ended up being unbeaten on 97 off 107 and led Afghanistan to a score of 244 all out
– Rassie van der Dussen bags 15th ODI fifty during run chase
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