Afghanistan booked their spot in the semi finals of the T20 World Cup 2024 after defeating Bangladesh by eight runs in a rain hit thriller. The match saw a lot of controversy after Gulbadin Naib’s dramatic and mischievous move to hold his hamstring to delay the match proceedings. Australia skipper Mitchell Marsh labelled it as one of the funniest things he had ever seen.
The match was interrupted by rain at regular intervals and the Afghan coach, Jonathan Trott was caught on camera instructing the players to slow down the game as while chasing 116 runs, Bangladesh fell just short of the Duckworth Lewis target. Following the instruction Gulabuddin collapsed to the ground holding the hamstring hilariously.
While Gulbadin sparked hilarious memes immediately following the incident, he drew widespread criticism when he returned to the field after play resumed, picked up a wicket, and joined Afghanistan’s wild celebrations. Despite being chastised by veteran cricketers, Marsh saw the humour in his performance.
“ I was almost in tears laughing and at the end of the day it had no bearing on the game. So we can laugh about it now–– but gee it was funny. It was outstanding.” said the Australian Skipper after Australia were knocked out of the T20 World Cup.
The all rounder also spoke how difficult it is to qualify despite suffering two back to back defeats and said, “ Obviously you want to keep playing this tournament and that was our only way of doing it. But there’s also the element that it was completely out of our control and we only had ourselves to blame for that.”
He also added, “We were all flat (when the final wicket fell). We were desperate to continue on in the tournament. But fair play to Afghanistan – they beat us and they beat Bangladesh and they deserve to be in the semi-finals.”