World Cup 2019, England vs Afghanistan: 2 reasons why Afghanistan lost against England

The 24th match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 saw Afghanistan succumbing to a massive loss against England by a huge margin of 150 runs at Old Trafford, Manchester.

Batting first, England posted a mammoth 397/6 on the board courtesy of Eoin Morgan's record-breaking 71-ball 148 and half-centuries from Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root. Afghanistan did manage to play out their entire quota of fifty overs as a gritty 100-ball 76 from Hashmatullah Shahidi led the way for his team.

Yet, despite Shahidi's half-century and 40s from Rahmat Shah and Asghar Afghan, Afghanistan finished off with just 247 runs from 50 overs and ended a whopping 150 runs short.

With this win, England moved to the top of the table with eight points from five matches while Afghanistan went closer to being knocked out of the competition. Here, we take look at the two main reasons for Afghanistan's defeat.

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#1 The dropped catch of Eoin Morgan by Dawlat Zadran

England v Afghanistan - ICC Cricket World Cup 2019

At the end of 35th over, England were at 199/2 and had laid a good platform to go big in the final overs. The second ball of the 36th over bowled by Rashid Khan saw Dawlat Zadran dropping a regulation chance handed out by Eoin Morgan.

The England skipper slog-swept a turning ball from Rashid Khan which went straight up in the air, only to be dropped by Zadran, who was back-tracking at deep mid-wicket and to add insult to injury, the ball trickled away for four.

Morgan, who was on 28 off 25 balls went on a hitting spree from then on as he collected a record 17 sixes at the end of the innings and got to a 71-ball 148 that took the game away from Afghanistan.

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#2 The slow run-rate maintained by the Afghan batsmen till the 30th over

With a herculian 399 to chase down, every team would want one of their batsmen to be aggressive at one end. However, barring Gubadin Naib's assault in the first few overs, Afghanistan got off to a slow start as Jofra Archer sent the opener Noor Ali back to pavilion in the second over and Mark Wood took the wicket of Naib in the 12th over.

While Rahmat Shah and Hashmatullah Shahidi did put up good scores, they were only at 125/3 from 30 overs, requiring 274 more runs from the remaining 20 overs. Even though it was not impossible, it was almost improbable for them to score at 14 runs per over and win the game.

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