Afghanistan defeated New Zealand on Friday at Guyana's Providence Stadium by 84 runs to bag their second consecutive win in the T20 World Cup 2024.
Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan talking in the post-match presentation claimed the win against New Zealand is the greatest performance by his side in T20 cricket.
"It's one of the greatest performances from us especially in T20s against a big team, New Zealand. It is all a great team effort. It's not just about the bowling. It's the batting, the way Ibrahim [Zadran] and [Rahmanullah] Gurbaz started.
“Again, the wicket wasn't easy to score on. But the way they played, they didn't throw away their wickets early on when they had a few dot balls from overs seven to nine. I think that was the time when they thought about taking it deep and overall it was a great effort, great win for Afghanistan and it's a great feeling to be leading this side and winning against New Zealand."
The Afghan skipper revealed that they were confident that a score of 160-170 would be defendable with the bowling line-up they have with them.
“It's something we have discussed before coming into the competition," he said. "Anything around 160-170 we score on this track, with the bowling unit we have, we will give tough time to the opposition. We knew there was support for the bowlers in the wicket. As long as we keep things simple and hit the right areas consistently, it was going to be more effective for us, and that's what happened.”
Afghanistan now sits at the top in the Group C points table after their second win in the tournament. They played their first game against Uganda and won it by 125 runs.
Meanwhile, the Kiwis sit at the bottom due to the defeat in their opening game of the T20 World Cup 2024.
As for the situation of the match, Kane Williamson’s men failed to achieve the target of 160 runs by Afghanistan and bundled out 75 runs in the 15.2 over. Only two Kiwi batters managed to score runs in the double figures and they were Glenn Phillips and Matt Henry as they scored 18 on 18 and 12 on 17 respectively.
Earlier, Afghanistan had scored 159 runs and it was seemingly an easy target for New Zealand. But Fazalhaq Farooqui and Rashid Khan had other plans as they both took 4 wickets each and the New Zealand batting lineup collapsed in what turned out to be Afghanistan’s first win over New Zealand in international cricket.
The two teams have met three times in the Cricket World Cup in 2015, 2019 and 2023 and once in the T20 World Cup in 2021 and New Zealand won all of the games.
Afghanistan is now scheduled to play Papua New Guinea on June 13 at Trinidad and New Zealand will play against West Indies on June 12.
- Rashid Khan
