The defending champions England were upset by the gutsy Afghanistan with an all-round performance beating them by 69 runs in the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi. Afghanistan’s openers outbattled Jos Buttler and Co. along with the lower-middle order and later outfoxed by their spin trio. England batsmen looked clueless against quality spin, with their equally rusty and slightly inexperienced bowlers. Captain Jos Buttler and the management would face a tough task in recovering from the loss to continue their title defense.
England had earlier faced a humbling defeat at the hands of New Zealand in the tournament opener, before bouncing back with an emphatic victory against Bangladesh. However, an unexpected loss against Afghanistan, only their second in World Cup history, will have a resounding impact on their morale.
Former England cricketer Michael Atherton came out with criticism of the England Team for their loss, especially targeting the bowlers who lacked experience and preparation for performing on such pitches.
England haven’t bowled well enough and teams have got off to fliers against them – Michael Atherton
The Former England skipper was speaking to Sky Sports post-match and observed that most of the bowlers were ‘undercooked’ and did not have enough playing time in the ODIs. He said that such an attitude has put the team in a tough spot, with them having to play the chasing game right from the powerplay overs.
“Many of the players are undercooked in terms of cricketing time, time in ODIs. But they have not hit the ground running and have made things very difficult for themselves now. I think England started badly today” said Michael Atherton.
Afghanistan scored 78 runs in the powerplay with no loss of wicket, thanks to some indiscipline bowling from Chris Woakes and Sam Curran who conceded 31 runs in the first 3 overs, and 26 in their first 2 overs respectively. This combined with some sloppy fielding put England on the backfoot in the opening overs from which point they were behind the opponents in terms of advantage.
Poor performance from England
The form of Chris Woakes and Sam Curran, two of England’s frontline seamers have been under the scanner during this World Cup as they have failed to make an impact with the new ball and have given away runs. Both bowlers have managed to pick up only 4 wickets amongst themselves and conceded at over 7.5 runs per over.
Thankfully for England, the duo’s below-par performance was offset by an impressive spell of part-time spin from Liam Livingstone and Joe Root who bowled 14 overs amongst themselves picking up 2 crucial wickets.
This was Afghanistan’s second win in their 17 World Cup matches, with the previous one coming against Scotland in 2015. Afghanistan had a forgetful campaign in the 2019 edition of the mega event, losing 9 out of their 9 matches, despite coming close to pulling off upsets. This victory against England would be a shot in the arm for them, who managed to rise up in the points table to the sixth position.