New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson was not blind to Afghanistan’s impressive performance on the match.
In his speech after the game, Williamson praised the visiting team for their outstanding play, noting that they had outdone his side in all departments of the game.
“Congratulations to Afghanistan; we were simply outplayed,” he said.
they maintained their wickets and made a good score, how else can you reach that total on this ground? However, quickly putting this behind us and moving on to our next challenge is what we need. Although it was hard and we need to move on quickly: there will be plenty more games down the track in this tournament. 160 was a tough chase, but we needed partnerships, the skills they had made it difficult for us,” said Williamson in the post-game press conference.
Afghanistan’s total of 159 for six wickets included an 80-run contribution from Rahmanullah Gurbaz who faced only 55 deliveries. This exceptional performance laid a strong foundation for his team while at the same time earning Gurbaz man of the match award.
Moreover Rashid Khan and Fazalhaq Farooqi combined to take four wickets each as New Zealand were bundled out at a mere 75runs with 4.5 overs left.Rashid Khan became captain who bowled best figures in T20 World Cup history when taking four wickets for seventeen runs; however Farooqi ended up being first ever performer with two consecutive four-wicket hauls in tournament’s history.
He also took note of some weakness points in New Zealand’s fielding,” There is no doubt that our fielding let us down during those first ten overs. We did not capitalize them as much as possible. In any case once they had put up anything decent their bowlers executed their skills really well.” After which he concluded by saying “we’ll have a talk about this and then look to come back well in the next match.”
New Zealand has now been left in a dangerous position within its group, commonly referred to as the Group of Death because of tough opponents. New Zealand now needs to secure victories that will see them advance into the next round since they have big games coming up including one against tournament hosts West Indies.