‘NZ ko harana aasan nahin hai’ – Fans react as New Zealand brush aside Afghanistan in ODI World Cup 2023

In the 16th game of the ongoing ODI World Cup 2023, New Zealand and Afghanistan played each other in Chennai. Ahead of the game, the Asian side was coming off an upset against the defending champions, England last weekend. On the other hand, the Blackcaps were coming off a hat-trick of wins in the tournament. Meanwhile, the Blue Brigade won the toss and surprisingly decided to bowl first.

Given the kind of batting they have and how they won against the Three Lions, they were expected to bat first. Meanwhile, the two-time finalists had a decent start although the Afghans were guilty of dropping two catches. After Mujeeb Ur Rahman trapped Devon Conway for lbw, the likes of Rachin Ravindra and Will Young put together 79 runs for the second wicket. However, after the fall of the former on 109, the team was reduced to 110/4.

It seemed that the Blue Brigade would bowl out their opposition for a low score. However, skipper Tom Latham (68) and Glenn Phillips (71)not only put together 144 runs for the fifth wicket. They also helped their team post a competitive total of 288/7 with Mark Chapman (28*) playing a cameo.

New Zealand maintains their winning momentum with a smashing win

In reply, the Hashmatullah Shahidi-led side had a poor start and they didn’t recover from it. The game was pretty much done after the wickets of the opening pair, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran with 27 runs on the board. After the wicket of their skipper at 43 runs, the likes of Rahmat Shah (36) and all-rounder Azmatullah Omarzai (27) put together 54 runs for the fourth wicket.

After this partnership was broken, it was only a matter of time before the team was bowled out. They were bowled out for 139 runs, losing the game by 149 runs. For the Blackcaps, Mitchell Santner and Lockie Ferguson took three wickets each. On the other hand, Trent Boult took two while Matt Henry and Rachin Ravindra took one each.

This is how Twitter reacted