Afghanistan’s reality still a dream for Bangladesh

History was created on Tuesday as Afghanistan broke Bangladeshi and Australian hearts and reached the T20 World Cup semifinals for the first time ever in their history. 

It was undoubtedly the greatest day in the cricket history of the war-torn country. The ongoing T20 World Cup has been a gift for Afghanistan that keeps on giving. 

According to their captain Rashid Khan, cricket is a source of happiness for the Afghanistani people and they have been able to give it back to the ones supporting them through thick and thin.

On the other hand, Bangladesh have frustrated the fans more often than not. In terms of the number of wins, this has been their best T20 World Cup thus far but Afghanistan, who are a relatively newer team, have already reached greater heights. 

Even in last year’s 50-over World Cup, Afghanistan came sixth, narrowly missing out on a semifinal spot whereas Bangladesh won their final match against Sri Lanka to secure their qualification for the 2025 Champions Trophy as the eighth team.

In their entire history, Bangladesh won only twice against higher-ranked sides in the T20 World Cup whereas Afghanistan beat three such teams – New Zealand, Australia and Bangladesh in the ongoing tournament alone. 

It was the seventh time Afghanistan beat Bangladesh in T20Is in 12 meetings. Despite being a lower-ranked team in the format, Afghanistan have the edge over the Tigers.

Afghanistan have a superior record in T20Is overall if we delve a little bit deeper. 

Bangladesh, so far, have won 25.4% of their matches against top-10 teams in T20Is. On the other hand, Afghanistan have won 33.96% of their matches against top-10 sides. 

Afghanistan have also been a spirited side in the other formats as well. They actually won their second Test match and were the fourth team after Australia, England and Pakistan to win one of the first two Tests.

They even beat Bangladesh by a huge margin of 224 runs in their second year as a Test-playing team. 

Naveen-ul-Haq’s heroic four-wicket haul earned him a Player of the Match award against Bangladesh. 

All of Afghanistan, Australia and Bangladesh were in the race for the semis. 

Bangladesh had to chase 116 in 12.1 overs to reach the semifinal on a difficult pitch. They were behind the required rate but not by much close to the halfway stage.

A floating batting order and negative batting approach saw Bangladesh fall way short of the rate and rain before the closure of the 12th over saw Bangladesh out of the semifinal race.

At that time, Australia were favourites to reach the semis but things suddenly fell apart for Bangladesh when their captain Rashid Khan got two wickets in two balls to reduce Bangladesh to 80-7 in the 11th over.

Then Naveen unleashed his array of variations to seal the deal for Afghanistan. 

Legendary West Indies cricketer Brian Lara had predicted that Afghanistan would reach the semis and Rashid was happy to “prove him right”.

“The only guy who put us in the semifinals was Brian Lara and we proved him right. When we met him at a welcome party, I told him we won’t let you down,” Rashid told commentator Simon Doull in the post-match interview.