Australia held on to beat Afghanistan by four runs tonight, and must rely on Sri Lanka defeating England to make it through to the semi-finals. Sent in to bat, the home side made 8/168 with Glenn Maxwell (player of the match) smashing 54 from 32 balls and Mitchell Marsh scoring 45. Afghanistan were 2/99 before losing four wickets for four runs in ten balls, including three wickets in one Adam Zampa over. Rashid Khan then hit to all parts of Adelaide Oval, finishing with 48 not out, and almost led his team to victory.
Afghanistan finished bottom of Group 1 with three losses and two matches washed out.
It must be said that Rashid Khan plays for Adelaide Strikers in the BBL so knows the ground very well. If he can show this kind of batting in the upcoming season, the Strikers will go very far in the competition.
Disappointing crowd of only 18,000 or so at the Australia game, weather was superb for the double-header. Nice seeing the various media crews in action too.
Agree, I thought the crowd would have been at least 30,000 given itâs a double header and how important this game was to the Australian team even though they were up against a minor cricketing nation.
This could be a reflection of how the Australian public has fallen out of love with the national mens team. I donât think itâs ever really recovered from Sandpaper-gate in that respect.
I personally think itâs more the advertising thatâs affected crowd numbers, the commercials at the moment on Fox Cricket are focussed more on their talent and not the international athletes that are on our soil. Thereâs an ICC produced one as well but that doesnât specify game times and schedules.
Thankfully Iâve seen a fair bit of marketing on Social media at least. (Thatâs how I knew it was on)
England have pipped the Sri Lankans in a low scoring game at the SCG, winning with just 4 wickets in hand and 2 balls to spare.
England were needing a run a ball for about the last 7 overs of their chase, and made hard work of it losing wickets regularly, but with Ben Stokes still at the crease, I always thought England would win as long as he was still there at the end, which was the case.
Englandâs win means AUS are now out of the T20 World Cup.
It was an interesting game and a refreshing change from the slogfests that usually prevail in 20 over games.
The pitch looked like it was as slow as the Australian over rate in a test match, at least at the end of each innings. This was a typical SCG wicket of old. Both teams found it hard to score after the initial 6 overs and a lot of the dismissals were indicative of a pitch that was holding up severely. Sri Lanka realised this and elected to bat first; I thought England would struggle playing the SL spinners and this proved to be the case. But they did enough in the first 6 overs of the chase to win.
The Netherlands have just pulled off one of the biggest upsets in cricket history, defeating the much more fancied South Africa by 13 runs!
With 2 more games still to come (PAK v BAN, IND v ZIM), it means India have now made it to the last 4, and any of Pakistan, Bangladesh or even South Africa can make it pending results.
It also means The Netherlands have qualified for the next T20 World Cup.
Thatâs a huge upset. It is also Netherlandsâ first victory over South Africa in any form of cricket.
South Africa finish on five points meaning they have been eliminated, as the winner of Pakistan-Bangladesh will end on six points and grab the last spot in the semi-finals.
Sri Lankan cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka has been arrested and charged with sexual assaulting a Sydney woman.
Police confirmed the international cricket star, 31, was arrested at a Sussex Street hotel about 1am on Sunday over the alleged incident in Sydneyâs east last week.
Detectives from the State Crime Commandâs Sex Crimes Squad and Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command commenced a joint investigation following reports a 29-year-old woman had been sexually assaulted at a home in Rose Bay.
Mr Gunathilaka was taken to Sydney Police Station and charged with four counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
He was refused bail to appear at Parramatta Bail Court on Sunday.
Close game so far, PAK âshouldâ get the runs from here at 75-2 after 12.5 overs chasing 128, but you can never be too confident with them, they have a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Pakistan has qualified into the Semi finals after beating Bangladesh by 5 wickets with 11 balls to spare at Adelaide oval. However the semi final lineup will depend on tonightâs match between India and Zimbabwe at the MCG.
