Afghanistan Cricket Board Lodges Official Complaint With ACC After Miscalculation Costs Them Place In Super 4s Of Asia Cup 2023 With Loss To Sri Lanka
Afghanistan didn't make it to the next round of the Asia Cup 2023 because they lost to Sri Lanka in the group stage. The fact that they didn't understand maths made them feel even worse about the loss.
They lost the game and their spot in the Super 4s because of a mistake they made. Now, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) went to the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) to complain. ACB wants to find out who made the mistake in figuring out how Afghanistan would win the match.
How did Afghanistan get things wrong?
After Afghanistan won the toss in the sixth Asia Cup match, Sri Lanka chose to bat first. In 50 overs, the islanders scored 291 runs and lost eight wickets. Kusal Mendis led the way with 92 runs. Afghanistan had to beat the goal in 37.1 overs in order to make it to the Super 4s. They didn't get enough runs and were out after 37.4 overs, with 289 runs.
Afghanistan's chase didn't get off to a good start because they lost both of their first batsmen quickly. Gulbadin Naib was moved up to No. 3 to help keep the game level and score quickly. Rahmat Shah also played well at the bat.
Before he left, he hit 45 runs off just 40 balls. At 121 for 5, Mohammad Nabi came in and hit a fifty off 24 balls. This is the fastest fifty ever hit by an Afghanistan hitter.
Hasmatullah Shahid, the team's captain, got 59 runs in just 66 balls, but when he and Nabi (who scored 65 runs in 32 balls), the innings started to slow down as wickets fell. Afghanistan lost their ninth wicket when Mujeeb Ur Rahman hit a duck.
They needed three more runs to qualify, and they only had one ball left. Afghanistan took things easy after they missed their goal. Fazalhaq Farooqi was on strike and hit two dots before getting out on the fourth ball of the over.
Afghanistan didn't know that if they had hit a six and scored 295 in the next three balls (by 37.4), they would have made it to the Super 4s.
The people in charge of Afghanistan did not know that they could have beat Sri Lanka's Net Run Rate (NRR) if they had scored 293 runs after 37.2 overs, 294 runs after 37.3 overs, 295 runs after 37.5 overs, 296 runs after 38 overs, or 297 runs after 38.1 overs.
If they had known these numbers, Fazalhaq Farooqi could have given strike back to Rashid Khan, and he could have helped end the game with a big hit. Fazalhaq stopped the next two balls with his bat, but he was out on the third one.
"Those figures were never shared with us. The only thing we knew was that we had to win in 37.1 overs. We were never told how many overs it would take to get 295 or 297. We were also never told that we could win in 38.1 overs, as Trott told ESPNCricinfo.
Afghanistan's head coach, Jonathan Trott, said the team was never told about the other ways to calculate and qualify. All they knew was that the goal needed to be reached in 37.1 overs. "Those figures were never shared with us.
The only thing we knew was that we had to win in 37.1 overs. We were never told how many overs it would take to get 295 or 297. We were also never told that we could win in 38.1 overs, as Trott told ESPNCricinfo.
But Trott also said that Afghanistan should do a better job of looking at itself than thinking about the mistakes. Before the ICC Men's ODI World Cup in 2023, he wants his bowlers to get better.