Australia Beats Afghanistan to Move to 6-2 at the Cricket World Cup

A Glenn Maxwell double century led Australia to a Cricket World Cup victory against a formidable Afghanistan team.

Australia was able to progress their winning streak at the Cricket World Cup to six games on Tuesday as they took down an Afghan team that was chasing them in the standings. Glenn Maxwell did nearly all the heavy lifting as his 201 not out carried the Aussies across the finish line. 

Afghanistan Vs. Australia Recap 

Afghanistan won the toss and elected to open the match batting.  
 
Afghanistan made their way to 37 before losing their first wicket. It was off the bowl of Josh Hazlewood that Rahmanullah Gurbaz flipped the ball legside into the cradling arms of Mitchell Starc.  
 
After this, the game was a bit of a back and forth battle with give and take from both the Afghan batters and Aussie bowlers. On the one hand, the bowling was unable to claim another wicket until the 24th over. However, throughout those innings the Afghan batters weren’t exactly crushing the ball working their way to only 120-2.  
 
This trend would continue as the third wicket was claimed in the 37th over with Afghanistan at 173. It was Mitchell Starc for Australia bowling a reverse to Hashmatullah Shahidi which fooled him and led to another Aussie wicket.  
 
Adam Zampa would then join the scoresheet in the 42nd over getting Azmatullah Omarzai to line a ball into the hands of Glenn Maxwell.  
 
Afghanistan would then finish their batting over’s strong taking their number to 291-5 by the end of their 50 overs leaving the Aussies to chase 292. Ibrahim Zadran finished with 129 not out, making him Afghanistan’s first World Cup centurion.  
 
With David Warner and Travis Head leading off, the batting for Australia did not get off to a hot start. Head was held without a run losing his wickets to Naveen-ul-Haq as Australia sat at 4-1. 
The man who would replace him in the centre, Mitchell Marsh, faced a similar demise falling to a Naveen bowl after just 24 runs.   
 
Warner stuck around for a while but failed to do considerable damage losing his stumps in the 8th over after putting just 18 on the board.  
 
Josh Inglis came on in place of Warner, but he too was unable to get anything going meeting the same fate as head, leaving the pitch with 0 runs.  

Here Comes Glenn Maxwell 

To this point it looked grim for Australia. They sat at just 49-4 chasing 292. Then came the turning point. Glenn Maxwell was close to out but upon review it was revealed he clipped the ball and stayed in. What a close call this turned out to be.  
 
Maxwell went on to play hero for his country smashing 201 not out to lead them to victory. During his time in the crease, he saw three of his partners quickly fall in Labuschagne, Stoinis, and Starc.  
 
He and captain Pat Cummins would lead Australia to the finish line in dramatic fashion. From 91-7 with hope seeming low, the pair stayed in the crease until the finish of 293-7. In that time, Cummins scored 12 runs with Maxwell carrying his side.  
 
Maxwell’s 201 is Australia’s highest ODI and World Cup total ever. Not to mention, he did much of his damage whilst being hardly able to move his lower half thanks to an injury.  

What is on the Horizon for the Aussies? 

Australia now faces Bangladesh today in their final group stage match which is largely inconsequential. They are already locked into a semi-final matchup with South Africa – a side that dispatched of them early in the tournament.  
 
I think it’s safe to say this semi-final will be much closer than their group stage meeting as Australia seems to be a completely different squad.

Australia began this Cricket World Cup with back-to-back big losses and the questions about the squad quickly piled up. They have since won six straight and thanks to a legendary Glenn Maxwell performance worked their way past Afghanistan earlier in the week.