Australia v Afghanistan Report Card
Featuring sleepiness and waking up to check the scores
Sleepiness
Grade: F
On a day where I was otherwise occupied for most of it and not feeling one hundred percent either, I was only able to tune into this game right at the very end of the Afghanistan innings, just in time to witness the Australian death bowling, which also seemed otherwise occupied and not functioning anything close to one hundred percent.
Some wayward bowling and canny later order hitting from Afghanistan saw them sneak their way to 5/291, with Ibrahim Zadran amassing a magnificent 129*.
Having watched Afghanistan’s previous match against the Netherlands, I’d become convinced that Australia would lose about 7/15 when faced with their spinners. I therefore concluded at the time that Travis Head and David Warner should aim for roughly 380 off the first ten overs to combat it.
A side bonus to this plan was that I only had about enough wakefulness in me for about an hour’s worth of second innings viewing. So if Australia could cram all their interesting stuff into that hour before I went to bed, that would be perfect.
And they seemingly did, with Afghanistan’s seam attack surprisingly ripping through Australia’s top order to have them 4/49 after 8.2 overs. Afghanistan were fired up for the contest, with Warner and Rashid Khan getting into an argument at one point about something or other.
(The highlight of this argument? Mitchell Marsh regularly interrupting it, demanding purposeless, interjected fist bumps. I also equally loved Warner distractedly providing the requested fist bumps then immediately resuming the squabble. Good cricket all round.)
But with the Australian top order joining my energy levels in being almost completely gone, I headed to bed, dreams full of Marnus’s inevitable 41 (76).
Morpheus Off The Short Run
Here’s what I missed, in limerick form:
The Australian batting still further crumbled
Seven for 91 and utterly humbled
So Maxwell and Pat
Had a bit of a bat
Until Glenn was out caught… oh, wait, Mujeeb fumbled?
Waking Up To Check The Scores
Grade: A
A little while later, I woke up just long enough to check the score and saw that Maxwell was on 97*. So I watched the rest of the innings on my phone, blearily blurry-eyed and blurrily bleary-eyed, watching in absolute awe as Pat Cummins guided Australia to victory with an unbroken 202-run partnership and a spectacular 12* (68).
Superb leadership from Australia’s ice-cool captain. The man you want in a crisis. The man you need in a crisis. The improbable victory ensured that Australia qualified for the World Cup semi-finals, where they will face South Africa.
(Note: GJ Maxwell also scored 201* (128))
