Battling pain and exhaustion, Glenn Maxwell produced arguably the greatest knock (201 not out from 128 balls) in the history of limited-overs cricket to single-handedly propel Australia to a three-wicket victory over the Afghanistan in the World Cup here on Tuesday.
With this, Australia became the third team to enter the semi-finals.
Selecting the batch, opener Ibrahim Zadran became the first Afghanistan batsman to score a World Cup debut and guided his team to 291 for five.
In reply, Australia were down and out at 91 for seven in the 19th over. That’s when Maxwell decided to take charge and made an incredible comeback as he put on 202 runs for the eighth wicket with skipper Pat Cummins (12 not out), who watched the disaster unfold from the other end.
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In all, Maxwell smashed 21 boundaries and 10 sixes.
Earlier, Zadran made his bat through the innings and finished on 129 not out from 143 balls.
Afghanistan lost opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz for 21 off 25 balls but Zadran and Rahmat Shah hit 83 runs for the second wicket to lay a good foundation before Glenn Maxwell dismissed the latter for 44 balls 30 in the 25th over with the score reading. 121.
Affected by the loss of a few wickets at the other end, Zadran continued to accumulate runs at a decent rate to support his team against the five-time world champions.
Rashid Khan smashed an unbeaten 35 off 18 balls towards the end.
Short scores:
Afghanistan: 291/5 in 50 overs (Ibrahim Zadran 129 not out; Josh Hazlewood 2/39).
Australia: 293/7 in 46.5 overs (Glenn Maxwell 201 not out).
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