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Tuesday, September 5, should be the toughest night for the Afghanistan team as they have a chance to qualify for the Super 4 of the Asia Cup 2023. However, the Afghanistan team lost a close match against Sri Lanka and were eliminated from the tournament. The reason behind Afghanistan’s defeat was nothing but miscalculation.
Indeed, Sri Lanka had given Afghanistan a target of 292 runs. The Afghanistan team knew that if they achieved this target in 37.1 overs, they would qualify for the Super 4 based on a good net run rate. This was the reason why the team attempted to achieve this target in just 37 overs. It took a while to believe that the team could do this.
Check out Asia Cup 2023 Super 4 Schedule, Team India will play their match on this day
However, this did not happen. There was a calculation in the team’s mind that if they achieved this target in 37.1 overs they would go ahead in net run rate, but the team management and support staff did not pay attention to the forward calculation. Rashid Khan and the rest of the batsmen achieved the target in 37.1 overs.
In the 38th over, when Dhananjay de Silva came in to bowl, Mujeeb ur Rahman tried to hit the log for a six, but was caught out. Thus, disappointment spread across the faces of all the Afghanistan players, but perhaps no one told them that they were still in the match. This could be attributed to an error by the support staff.
What would have happened in the match?
On the first ball of the 38th over, Mujeeb would have given Rashid a strike with a single and if Rashid had hit a four or a six off that ball, the team would have reached Super 4. In other circumstances, the team could have qualified even if they had scored 295 runs till the fourth ball. There was also a scenario that if Afghanistan had scored 295 from the fifth ball of the 38th over, the net run rates of Afghanistan and Sri Lanka would have been the same and the decision would have been a coin toss.
After the match, Afghanistan cricket team coach Jonathan Trott clarified to the media that he was only told about the circumstances of the 37.1 run chase. This would be the fault of the broadcasting team as they were not able to flash the figures from time to time and therefore did not know how they could improve the net run rate.