Former Indian opener Aakash Chopra raised his concerns regarding the fielding performance of the Afghanistan side against the Australia side, which has greatly affected their chances of making it into the semifinals of the ODI World Cup 2023.
With Australia being down for 91-7, Glenn Maxwell and Pat Cummins formed a brilliant partnership in the middle to achieve their record chase in the ODI World Cup, which was greatly aided by the poor bowling and fielding performance of Afghanistan, where they put down few straight opportunities in the match.
Speaking on his YouTube Channel, Aakash Chopra feels that fielding has been the biggest letdown of the Afghanistan team in the important game against Australia. He believes that it was a golden opportunity missed by the side to pull off an upset against the five-time champions and highlighted the drop by Mujeeb Ur Rahman, which cost their side the game.
“Fielding has let this team down. This has happened earlier as well and has happened again. It has become slightly frustrating that Afghanistan’s fielding is extremely ordinary. Otherwise, the team is playing extremely well. They lost but won hearts. They will think they lost an opportunity.”
“No one drops catches deliberately but this was a regulation catch, and after that, the match itself went out of their grasp. No one thought a catch would be dropped like that, or Pat Cummins would play almost 70 balls for just 12 runs, or there would be such a big 200-run partnership where one guy would contribute just 12,” Aakash Chopra said.
Early in his knock, Glenn Maxwell had some luck on his side. When he was batting 33 runs Maxwell swept the ball into the hands of Mujeeb Ur Rahman, which he dropped to provide him a golden opportunity, and Shahidi missed a difficult opportunity. The LBW call that was given to him first appeared to be out, but it was reversed following a DRS review.
Afghanistan Couldn’t Pace Their Innings That Well – Aakash Chopra
Aakash Chopra feels that Afghanistan fell short of the on-par target in Wankhede, as they looked well-settled to score 325 runs at one stage before being restricted to 291 runs and feels that they would pace the innings properly despite Ibrahim Zadran scoring a century in the game.
“Before all that, they reached 291 while batting. It seemed like 325 runs were also possible at one stage. They couldn’t pace their innings that well but Ibrahim Zadran became the first Afghanistan player to score a century on the World Cup stage,” Aakash Chopra added.
After winning the toss, Afghanistan captain Shahidi decided to bat first on what appeared to be a good batting surface. They scored 291/5, with Ibrahim Zadran’s unbeaten 129 off 143 balls being the standout performance and Rashid Khan playing a quickfire knock at the death overs but which was not enough for the team at the end.
