An exciting match was witnessed today at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, Pakistan. In this match, Bangladesh team registered a spectacular victory and won its first match in the Asia Cup 2023 tournament, while Afghanistan team, which played its first match of the tournament, had to face defeat. Of course, Afghanistan may have lost this match by a big margin, but despite this, some moments happened in this match which made this match interesting. Complete action and drama was seen during this match. Due to which even the fans were left breathless.
Looking at the performance of the Afghan players in this match, it did not seem as if they had come on the field to play with full preparation. The reason for which was that despite having star bowlers like Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan in the Afghanistan team, the Afghanistan team kept yearning for wickets. The result of which was that Bangladesh was successful in scoring 334 runs at the loss of five wickets in the stipulated 50 overs in this match.
For Bangladesh, Nazbul Hussain Shanto and Mehdi Hasan Miraj scored brilliant centuries. On the other hand, Afghanistan’s second innings was reduced to 245 runs. For the Afghan team, Ibrahim Zardan scored 75, Hashmatullah Shahidi scored 51, Rahmat Shah scored 33 and Rashid Khan scored 24 runs. Apart from these players, no other player could cross the 20 run mark.
After the victory of Bangladesh, the points table of Group 2 has completely changed. The way Bangladesh played in this match, which suffered a crushing defeat in the first match against Sri Lanka, was really praiseworthy. Looking at Bangladesh’s performance today, it seemed that Bangladesh had come fully prepared in this match, taking lessons from the mistakes made in the previous match. In a do or die match, Bangladesh not only batted brilliantly but also bowled well, as a result of which Bangladesh was successful in winning the match easily.
After this match, now if we talk about the points table of Group 2, both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have reached the top position with 2 points each. Whereas Afghanistan is currently at third position with zero points. However, the biggest thing is that if Afghanistan succeeds in winning the match between Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, then all three teams will have 2 points each.
Due to which the path to Super-4 between these three teams will be decided on the basis of run rate. The team which has better run rate will qualify for the Super-4 match. However, if Sri Lanka defeats Afghanistan in the upcoming match, then it will be completely clear that the teams of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will qualify from Group 2. Whereas this is where we will travel to Afghanistan.
