Sloppy Afghanistan suffer for elementary mistakes

After a near-perfect day against England, Afghanistan's World Cup campaign came crashing down through a massive 149-run defeat to New Zealand in Chennai on Wednesday (October 18). Chasing a competitive target of 289, the innings never took for Afghanistan batters were unable to cope with the new ball that moved around under lights. The spinners led by Mitchell Santner (3/39) were also a handful as the result was virtually decided long before the game officially ended. Lockie Ferguson also starred with a typically fiery spell (3/19) of his own.

If the New Zealand-Bangladesh game on this surface was any indication, the quicks were always going to be tough to face, particularly under lights. The first few overs were negotiated reasonably by Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran with both batters playing an impressive stroke apiece. But as soon as Matt Henry and Trent Boult got their radar right, it spelt trouble for the opening pair. Henry produced a cracking nip-backer to castle Gurbaz while Zadran was early into the flick stroke to get a soft leading edge that was taken comfortably at cover. Given Afghanistan's overdependence on their top order, their openers in particular, this double strike effectively took the wind out of the innings very early. Ferguson then came onto blow the batters away with his pace and bounce.

Rahmat Shah stuck around with skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi but neither batter showed any intent to put the pressure on New Zealand whose bowlers were more than happy to keep plugging away on probing lines/lengths. The required run rate kept mounting and it was soon evident that Afghanistan wouldn't be able to make a match of this chase barring a miracle. Azmatullah Omarzai and Ikram Alikhil showed some urgency but by the time they had come to bat, the task had escalated to unprecedented levels. New Zealand's bowlers clinically polished off the middle and lower order to boost New Zealand's already healthy net run rate.

Losing by a big margin isn't new but Afghanistan's lack of clarity in run chases is now increasingly becoming a pattern. They've often been guilty of showing very little intent in the start of their run chases, thereby leaving a lot to do for their lower and middle order. Which begs the question - why did they opt to field after winning a handy toss? The dew factor was definitely in their minds but by the time it came, the game was done. Another trend seen in this World Cup has been the help fast bowlers get under lights with/without dew. Afghanistan themselves experienced it during their game against England in Delhi. But these mistakes are pardonable when compared to what Afghanistan did in the field earlier today.

There were a plethora of dropped catches, right from early on in the afternoon when Will Young was offered a life. He went onto produce a handy fifty and while Rachin Ravindra's drop wasn't as costly, it showed the sloppy nature of Afghanistan on the field. New Zealand feasted on these gifts and were comfortably placed at 109/1 before Omarzai was brought into the attack. He struck immediately, by getting rid of Young and Ravindra in the same over to bring Afghanistan back into the game. Rashid Khan then had the dangerous Daryl Mitchell next over and New Zealand were suddenly 110/4.

However, skipper Tom Latham and Glenn Phillips stitched a priceless 144-run stand to put the innings on the track. The feature of their partnership was the running between the wickets. Their intent often put the Afghanistan fielders off, leading to misfields and extra runs. The surface wasn't the easiest to score off against the off-pace deliveries and spinners. Therefore, both batters were patient enough to hold their horses till the slog overs when both went hard at the bowling. Phillips was fairly fluent from the get-go while Latham gathered steam only at the back end. Crucially for New Zealand, both batters hung in there and even they were helped by dropped catches from Afghanistan.

The amount of dropped catches told severely in the eventual score and it left Rashid fuming as two chances were off his own bowling. He too was guilty of spilling a chance in the field. If Afghanistan had executed the controllables of fielding well, they could well have restricted New Zealand to a score of 250 or thereabouts. It still would have taken some chasing, given Afghanistan's approach with the bat but being sloppy in the field effectively allowed New Zealand to get a strong total on the board.

Brief scores: New Zealand 288/6 in 50 overs (Glenn Phillips 71, Tom Latham 68; Naveen-ul-Haq 2-48) beat Afghanistan 139 in 34.4 overs (Rahmat Shah 36; Lockie Ferguson 3-19, Mitchell Santner 3-39) by 149 runs