The Afghanistan cricket team booked their progression into the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup 2024, beating Bangladesh in their final Super 8 match of the tournament. Though it was a deserving win for Afghanistan, there were many head-scratching incidents from the game that left the world of social media baffled. The biggest incident that made headlines was Afghanistan star Gulbadin Naib's shock injury claim that seemed to have come on the instructions of coach Jonathan Trott. Seeing the act getting caught on camera, even 'cheating accusations' were made against Naib, Trott and Afghanistan.
Gulbadin Naib seemed to have 'faked' his injury as he fell down while fielding in slips while holding his hamstring. The incident even forced the medical team to rush in and carry him out of the ground. Not just the Bangladesh team but Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan seemed frustrated by the act.
"The coach sends a message out to say slow it down, slow it down and the first slip just dives on the ground needlessly. That is unacceptable. Gone off anyway. I get that might have gone off anyway for the rain," said Simon Doull while commentating during the match.
Zimbabwean commentator Pommie Mbangwa also quipped: "Oscar, Emmy?".
Here's the video:
Seeing the incident, the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin, Michael Vaughan, etc. took to social media to crack jokes.
Afghanistan made the entire cricket world stand up and take notice a they shrugged off the 'minnows' tag, and confirmed their status among the elite teams in the sport.
Afghanistan skipper Rashid Khan admitted after the game that it was a dream coming true moment for him and the team.
"It's something like a dream for us as a team being in the semifinal. It's all about the way we have started the tournament. The belief came while we beat NZ. I don't have any words to describe the feeling. The only guy who put us in the semifinal was Brian Lara and we proved it right. I told him we won't let you down. We thought 130-135 was a good total on this wicket. We were 15-20 runs short. It was all about mindset. We knew they would come hard at us to chase that in 12 overs. That's where we could take advantage, We just had to be clear with our plans. We put in the effort, that's in our hands. Everyone did a wonderful job," he said.
The Afghans next take on South Africa in the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup 2024.