Who knew four years after their 2019 World Cup triumph, England would go back in time to play like they did in 2015, whose debacle started the white-ball revolution which has dictated how they have played in the last eight years in ODIs especially. England lost the tournament opener against New Zealand in Ahmedabad and then came back to beat Bangladesh rather comfortably but were undone by the Afghanistan spin trio in Delhi on Sunday, October 15 as the defending champions don't look like the team and are not playing with the approach and mindset they have been preaching for the last eight years.
The frustration and irritation was visible on the players' faces and in their action and one particular instance summed it up for England when Afghanistan got off to a flyer in the powerplay. All-rounder Sam Curran, who has been underwhelming in the tournament so far, had another poor outing with both bat and ball.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz was going all guns blazing in the powerplay and Curran, unfortunately, was at the receiving end. Curran bowled a no-ball and then gave away a couple of boundaries and a six to leak 20 runs off the 9th over of Afghanistan's innings. Curran was naturally frustrated and his anger came out on the cameraman. The camera was near Curran on the boundary and the pacer shoved it away as it got too close to him. The cameraman's hands shook before he got away from the all-rounder.
Watch the video:
Afghanistan scored 284 runs riding on Rahmanullah Gurbaz's 57-ball 80 but that proved to be too much for the Englishmen as they couldn't chase it down with the Afghan spin trio of Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi accounted for eight wickets. England fell short by 69 runs and now have already lost two out of three matches in the tournament so far.
