New Zealand won its fourth consecutive win in the tournament by defeating Afghanistan by 149 runs in the 16th match of the ODI World Cup 2023. In the match, first the New Zealand batsmen performed strongly and then wreaked havoc with the bowling and bowled out Afghanistan for 139 runs.
After losing the toss and batting first, the Kiwi team scored 288 runs for 6 wickets on the board in 50 overs. Glenn Phillips scored 71 runs and captain Tom Latham scored 68 runs for the team. Whereas, in bowling, Ferguson and Santner took 3 wickets each.
The Afghanistan team, which came to chase the runs, was all out in 34.4 overs. Rahmat Shah played the biggest innings of 36 runs for the team, which included 1 four. At the same time, no batsman of the team could play a big innings. The team lost wickets continuously from the beginning till the end.
The first blow to Afghanistan came in the form of Rahmanullah Gurbaz on the score of 27 runs in the sixth over, who went away after scoring 11 runs. Then in the next over, the second opener Ibrahim Zardan became the victim of Trent Boult after scoring 14 runs. After this, on the last ball of the 14th over, Captain Hashmatullah Shahidi (8) was sent to the pavilion by Lockie Ferguson. Although after this, Afghanistan’s wickets were controlled for some time, but in the 26th over, Trent Boult got Azmatullah Omarzai (27) caught by the keeper.
After this, no batsman from Afghanistan could stay on the crease for long and the process of falling wickets continued. Rahmat Shah, who was playing a steady innings in the 29th over, departed after scoring 36 runs. Then Mohammad Nabi 07, Rashid Khan 08, Mujeeb Ur Rehman 04, Naveen Ul Haq 00, and Fazal Haq Farooqui returned to the pavilion as the last wicket for 00 runs. The team lost the last four wickets in just 2 overs.
Kiwi bowlers performed tremendously…
For New Zealand, Lockie Ferguson and Mitchell Santner took maximum 3-3 wickets. Apart from this, Trent Boult made 2 batsmen his victims. Whereas Matt Henry and Rachin Ravindra got 1-1 success.