Not many would have favoured a team with no wins in the on-going ICC T20 World Cup, to give a neck-to-neck fight to the defending champions. But such has been the nature of the matches this time around, where underdogs are giving nightmares to their opponents. The latest being the Mohammad Nabi-led Afghanistan against the defending champions- Australia. After the end of the first innings, Aussies had put up a below-par total on board as only Glenn Maxwell and Mitchell Marsh made note-worthy contributions apart from David Warner’s cameo at the top. In return, the Afghan batsmen also came up with similar performances as their opponents. As always, Rahmanullah Gurbaz started the innings with a flier but couldn’t carry on for long. However, the partnership between Ibrahim Zadran and Gulbadin Naib proved to be a headache for the Aussies with the later scoring at the much quicker and fluent rate. The partnership was marching towards the total and it needed a Glenn Maxwell special direct hit from the boundary to end Gulbadin Naib’s knock. What followed next was a typical batting collapse with which Afghanistan is fairly familiar with over the years. Then arrived a storm named Rashid Khan who’s blistering knock almost took the Afghans to a memorable win. However, it proved to be a night of “So near yet so far’ for Rashid Khan and Afghanistan who walk back from Australia without a win this year in the T20 World Cup.
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