Afghanistan won the ODI match played at the Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad on Friday (June 14). T20 World Cup In the 29th match of 2024, Afghanistan defeated Papua New Guinea by 7 wickets. Afghanistan qualified for the Super 8 round with their third consecutive win. With Afghanistan's victory, New Zealand team was eliminated from the group stage itself.

Afghanistan had a modest target of 96 runs to win this match, which they achieved within 16 overs by losing only 3 wickets. PNG's fielders contributed as much to their defeat as their batsmen and bowlers because if they had not done poor fielding, then perhaps this match could have been closer.

In the very first over of this run chase, PNG fielders made a lot of mistakes which you rarely see even in school cricket. One such incident was seen in the first over of Afghanistan's innings when the fifth ball of the over, bowled by Ali Nao, created a panic. The ball was a length delivery angling onto the pads at 117 kmph which Ibrahim Zadran failed to flick and the ball hit his pads. He managed to steal a quick leg bye.

The backward point fielder at the time was Hiri Hiri, who quickly retrieved the ball and threw it to the bowler's end, but there was no one to back up his throw. The ball went to the long-on region, allowing the batsmen to complete three more runs. Then came a throw to the striker's end, where the PNG keeper missed it and the backup fielder also failed to catch it, resulting in another run going to Afghanistan. This series of mistakes led to Afghanistan getting a total of five runs off a single ball, which shows the schoolboyish mistakes of PNG's fielders.