The past trauma and horrors can have a real, tangible effect on living and breathing people and their memories and lives. But what about sportspersons? Let's take Afghanistan's example. Afghanistan, a David against Australia's Goliath, had the then five-time world champions seven down for 91 with the latter chasing 292 to win in a crucial World Cup 2023 encounter but a storm hit them after that. A one-legged monster in the form of Glenn Maxwell, who just kept smashing them and ended up breaking a world record, becoming the first batter in cricket history to score a one-day double ton in a successful run-chase.
Maxwell broke Afghanistan's dream of making a World Cup semi-final. The Asian side did beat Australia in the T20 World Cup and made their maiden ICC semi-final but an ODI ICC event is something else. Now, it's almost a deja-vu for Afghanistan, Australia stand between them and a place in the semi-final of the Champions Trophy and it is Maxwell yet again in the line-up.
After Afghanistan run England ragged to reignite their semi-final chances, skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi was asked about Maxwell yet again but the left-hander was pretty confident in his response saying that he is not the only one in the Australian team they have to tackle.
"You think we will come only to play with Maxwell?" Shahidi said in the presser when asked about the World Cup 2023 match.
"We have planning for all Australian team. I know that he played really well in 2023 World Cup, but that's part of the history. After that, we beat them in [the] T20 World Cup. We think about all [the] opposition team, we are not coming to the ground to plan on [an] individual player. We will try our best to come up with the planning and we are not playing only Maxwell - we are playing Australia," Shahidi added.
With a semi-final place on the line, it is a do-or-die match yet again but Afghanistan will need to keep their calm and hold their horses, if that is taken care of, the Men in Blue should be good.
"We won't put that pressure on ourselves by thinking too much about the semi-final qualification," Shahidi further said. Australia without their first-choice bowling attack are vulnerable too but the experience in performing in high-pressure situations should keep them in good stead after they pulled off the highest successful chase in ICC white-ball events.