A World Cup Upset In The Making?

The 2023 ODI Cricket World Cup hasn’t yet seen an upset – a minor nation taking down a major one. Today’s match features defending champions England and Afghanistan, who come into it with one win from 17 previous world cup matches. This post looks at developments in that game so far.

A TALE OF TWO BOWLING STYLES

Jos Buttler won the toss and put Afghanistan into bat. The first ominous sign was his revelation after the toss that he didn’t know why he had chosen to bowl first. Afghanistan got away to a rapid start as England’s seamers indicated that they had little idea of what they should be doing on that surface. By the end of the 10th over Afghanistan were 79-0. Afghanistan slowed thereafter, and lost three quick wickets when Ibrahim Zadran fell for 28 (out of an opening stand of 114, with Rahmanullah Gurbaz playing brilliantly and England contributing quite a few extras). Rahmat Shah was out cheaply, and then Hashmatullah Shahidi caused the downfall of Gurbaz for a splendid 80 when he took on a single that was never there and Gurbaz, even with a desperate dive at the end, was a good two yards short of his ground. Hashmatullah also scored very slowly in his own innings. Fortunately Ikram Alikhil played a fine innings, and Mujeeb Ur Rahman played an aggressive cameo late on. Afghanistan were all out to the second last scheduled ball of their innings for 284, a new highest ever world cup innings for them. The seamers bowled 25.5 overs and had combined figures of 3-189, while the spinners sent down 24 overs (Livingstone, who had never previously bowled a full allocation in an ODI innings, 10-0-33-1, Rashid 10-1-42-3 and Root, called on in desperation because the seamers, particularly Curran and Woakes, were so dire, 4-0-19-1) for a combined 5-94, while there were two run outs, one of them the tenth wicket. It was ominous that England’s spinners had done so well, since two of them, Livingstone and Root, are primarily batters, while Afghanistan had the talents of Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and the veteran Mohammad Nabi available to them.

AFGHANISTAN IN CONTROL WITH THE BALL

Bairstow fell early to Fazalhaq Farooqi, and Root was also out cheaply, bowled by Mujeeb Ur Rahman, who shared the new ball. Dawid Malan’s dismissal for 32 was really odd – he played the ball straight into a fielder’s hand. Naveen ul Haq got through the defences of Buttler to make it 96-4, and 21 runs later came a farcical situation. Livingstone was hit on the pads by Rashid Khan, absolutely plumb in front, and duly given out. He sent it upstairs, knowing that unless it was overturned it was virtually game over for England. When he saw the replay on the big screen he started walking even before they got to using the ball tracking software, so blatantly stone dead was it. That made it 117-5. England have moved on to 128-5, but Sam Curran, the number seven, has barely been any less unimpressive with the bat than he was the ball (given his figures of 4-0-46-0 it would be hard to be more so).

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off, including what may be the last butterflies of 2023 (today, like yesterday, has been sunny but cooler than the early part of October):

While I have been preparing this post for publication Sam Curran’s miserable participation in this match (4-0-46-0 and 10 off 23 balls) has come to an end. England are 145-6 in the 31st over, needing 140 runs off 118 balls.