If anyone would have said that Afghanistan would have beaten two World Cup champions, a current and one former, 18 days into the tournament, they would have been laughed at. But the underdogs have really started to bite and after England, their second victim in the ongoing ICC Men's Cricket World Cup was Pakistan, who are struggling to put a complete performance together in the tournament.
Afghanistan are now one of the genuine contenders for the semifinals having beaten two strong teams and the win against Pakistan in Chennai, by chasing a 282-run total will be coming of age of this young side, who is trying to find its presence on the cricketing map for the last eight years. And Rashid Khan, one of the stars of this Afghanistan side, celebrated the victory in style by dancing alongside former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan.
During the Afghanistan team's lap of honour, Rashid spotted Pathan, who was busy in broadcasting for the official broadcaster. Both shared a warm embrace before breaking into dancing as the video has gone viral on the internet. Irfan while sharing the images of the dance suggested that Rashid kept his promise of Afghanistan beating Pakistan and he kept his promise of them dancing together.
Watch the video here:
After having Pakistan at 206/5 at the 42-over mark, Afghanistan would have felt that they gave away 20 too many in the end.
But it seemed like a champion team came out to chase the total - professional, calculative and just simply brilliant. Rahmanullah Gurbaz gave the perfect platform with a quickfire 65 and Ibrahim Zadran continued on to smash 87. He would have been disappointed to take his side to the door but not across it.
However, the Afghans were not going to back down today as skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi and Rahmat Shah with an unbeaten 77 took their side home without any discomfort. They cruised to victory as not for one moment did they let Pakistan come back into the game after they lost both the openers.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan have won two games out of five each but who would be in better position currently? Your guess is as good as mine...
