Afghanistan was the youngest team in this world cup. The Gulbadin Naib led team failed miserably in this session. They were the only team who haven’t won a single match. However, today at Stakebd, we are going to give you a complete overview of the Afghanistan team and analyze their performance in this world cup.

Afghanistan ICC CWC Report 2019

Overview

Afghanistan came to play the World Cup for the second time with a head full of dreams. However, all of their dreams got shattered by one after another as they started to lose. In this session through the pitches of England was relatively in favor of pacers. This may have played a vital role in their bad performance a team heavily depends on their spinner trio. However, they have shown some good performance against big teams.

Maybe their luck did not help them. Or maybe they need to reorganize everything related to their cricket. They made a change in their team captaincy just before the world cup. They made a split captaincy system. Maybe the team couldn’t adapt to the system. The new captain’s form was poor and their star bowler Rashid Khan was a huge disappointment in this session. Rashid became the most expensive bowler which nobody could have dreamt before. All these things mixed together and created a situation that drowned Afghanistan in this World cup.

Positive Sides

Though they did not win any of the games, their performance against India and Pakistan did give them some optimism about their future. Their spinners did an amazing job to hold the Indian batsmen into pressure and bind them within 224 runs. Moreover, Afghan batsmen also put out an energetic response but could not win over superior India.

All-rounder Mohammad Nabi was their biggest wicket-taker in this tournament. He is a strike bowler who played for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL. He carried some of that form of IPL to the World Cup. His 4/30 against Sri Lanka was integral to Afghanistan restricting them to a modest 201. Moreover, his half-century brought them close to pulling off a huge upset against India.

Needs to Improve

In the fast bowling section, they need to improve a lot. Their fast bowlers could only manage to pick up 23 wickets out of 47. It is really insufficient. They seem to have less knowledge about this. But they will learn it about more when their knowledge will expand about cricket.

Their other weakness is poor fielding performance. Naib said their main reason for the defeat against Bangladesh was awful fielding. If they could manage to guard the boundaries and check extra runs, the outcomes could have been different.

Rising Star

Mujeeb ur Rahman
Off-spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman bowled incredible

The 18-year-old off-spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman bowled incredible despite taking a lot of wickets. He has an economy rate of 4.47 in this tournament. In the match against India, Mujeeb picked up the wicket of Rohit Sharma and put India under huge pressure. He is surely going to perform better in the upcoming days.

Batting Report of the Mujeeb Ur Rahman
Match Name I R BF S/R 4s 6s No
AFG Vs AUS 4th Match 1 13 9 144.44 1 1 0
AFG Vs SL 7th Match 1 1 1 100 0 0 1
ENG Vs AFG 24th Match
 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
IND Vs AFG 28th Match
 1 0 1 0 0 0 0
BAN Vs AFG 31st Match
 1 0 4 0 0 0 0
PAK Vs AFG 36th Match
 1 7 9 77.78 1 0 1
AFG Vs WI 42nd Match 1 7 5 140 1 0 1

Note: I: Innings, R: Runs, BF: Balls Faced, S/R: Strike Rate, 4’s: No. of 4’s, 6’s: No. of 6’s, No: Not Outs

Spoiler title
Match Name Wickets BB RC ER Mds Wds Nb 4s 6S C&B
AFG Vs AUS 4th Match 1 29 45 9.31 0 0 0 5 1 0
AFG Vs SL 7th Match 0 18 19 6.33 0 1 0 3 0 0
ENG Vs AFG 24th Match 0 60 44 404 0 2 0 2 1 0
IND Vs AFG 28th Match 1 60 26 2.6 0 1 0 1 0 0
BAN Vs AFG 31st Match 3 60 39 3.9 0 3 0 1 0 0
PAK Vs AFG 36th Match 2 60 34 3.4 1 0 0 2 0 0
AFG Vs WI 42nd Match 0 60 52 5.2 0 2 0 6 1 0

Note: Wkts: Wickets, BB: Balls Bowled, RC: Runs Conceded, E/R: Economy Rate, Mds: Maidens, Wds: Wides, Nb: No Balls, C & B: Caught and Bowled

Results

Date Opponent Result
01 June 2019 Australia Australia won by seven wickets
04 June 2019 Sri Lanka Sri Lanka won by 34 runs (D-L method)
08 June 2019 New Zealand New Zealand won by seven wickets
15 June 2019 South Africa South Africa won by nine wickets
18 June 2019 England England won by 150 runs
22 June 2019 India India won by 11 runs
24 June 2019 Bangladesh Bangladesh won by 62 runs
29 June 2019 Pakistan Pakistan won by three wickets
04 July 2019 West Indies West Indies won by 23 runs

Conclusion

Afghans definitely need a lot to learn about cricket. The good thing here is they seem to learn pretty quickly. Their team management seems very restless about changing the format and team line up quite frequently. They recently put down Naib from captaincy and gave Rashid Khan to lead. This kind of scenario will not bring prosperity for them in the long run.