Under the ninth edition of Champions Trophy held in Pakistan and Dubai, Afghanistan won over England in Group B match on Wednesday. In the match in Lahore, Afghanistan won by 8 runs against strong England.
Batting first, Afghanistan gave a target of 325 runs for the loss of 7 wickets. Chasing a target of 326 runs, England were bowled out for 317 runs in 49.5 overs.
Ibrahim Zardan's innings was important while making a huge score for Afghanistan. He faced 146 balls and contributed 177 runs alone. In this process, he hit 12 fours and 6 sixes.
Similarly Hasmatullah Shahidi contributed 40 runs, Azmatullah Omarzai 41 and Mohammad Navi 40 runs. Other batters could not score runs in double figures.
Jofra Arch took 3 wickets for England, Lim Livingstone took 2 wickets and Jamie Overton and Adil Rashid took one wicket each.
Joey Root contributed 120 runs on behalf of England during the reply batting alone, but it was not enough for victory. He played 111 balls and hit 11 fours and one six. Similarly, Josh Butler and Ben Duckett scored 38/38 runs and Jamie Overton scored 32, Harry Brock scored 25, Jofra Archer scored 14, Phil Salt scored 12 and Lim Livingstone scored 10. Azmatullah Omarzai of Afghanistan alone took five wickets for
bowling. He bowled 9.5 overs and took five important wickets at the expense of 58 runs. Similarly, Mohammad Navi took 2 wickets, Rashid Khan, Gulbuddin Naib and Fazalhaq Farooqui took one wicket each.
In this group, South Africa is in first place with 3 points due to one win and one point. Similarly, Australia is second with one win and sharing one point with three points, while Afghanistan is third with two points with one loss and one win. England is without points after losing two matches.
The top two teams will enter the semi-finals. India and New Zealand have reached Group A. Pakistan and Bangladesh, who have been eliminated from the semi-final race after losing two matches in a row in Group A, are playing the last match of the group stage today. According to Nepali time, the match will be played at 2:45 PM.
