The Afghanistan cricket team secured their progression to the semi-finals of the 2024 T20 World Cup, defeating Bangladesh in their final Super 8 match of the tournament. Although it was a deserved victory for Afghanistan, there were many frightening incidents in the game that left the social media world perplexed. The biggest incident that grabbed the headlines was the shocking injury claim to Afghan star Gulbadin Naib, which appeared to have occurred on the instruction of coach Jonathan Trott. Seeing the act being caught on camera, even ‘accusations of cheating’ were leveled against Naib, Trott and Afghanistan.
Gulbadin Naib appeared to have ‘faked’ the injury as he fell while slipping while holding his hamstring. The incident even forced medical staff to rush in and pull him off the ground. Not only the Bangladesh team but also Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan seemed frustrated with the act. Here is the video:
This has to be the funniest thing ever. Gulbadin Naib simply breaks down after coach tells him to slow down pic.twitter.com/JdHm6MfwUp
– Sports Production (@SportsProd37) June 25, 2024
Seeing the incident, people like Ravichandran Ashwin, Michael Vaughan, etc. took to social media to make jokes.
Hitting, running, sliding the field, celebrating and now taking wickets. pic.twitter.com/ZfPhdTj86s
-Ashwin (@ashwinravi99) June 25, 2024
Red card for Gulbadin Naib
-Ashwin (@ashwinravi99) June 25, 2024
It’s great to see Gulbadin become the first cricketer in the history of the game to take a wicket within 25 minutes of being shot…
-Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) June 25, 2024
This is unacceptable
This is Afghanistan cheatingBangladesh scored 81 runs before rain and were just 2 runs behind par and Gulbadin Naib did this to prevent Bangladesh from winning the DLS
Once a cheater, always a cheater pic.twitter.com/oEnVPlcFCP
-Imran Siddique (@imransiddique89) June 25, 2024
Afghanistan made the entire cricketing world sit up and realize that they had ignored the ‘minnows’ label and confirmed their status among the sport’s elite teams.
Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan admitted after the game that it was a dream come true moment for him and the team.
“It’s like a dream for us as a team to be in the semi-final. It’s all about how we started the tournament. The belief came when we beat New Zealand. I have no words to describe the feeling. The only guy who got us into the semi-final it was Brian Lara and we proved ourselves right. I told him we won’t disappoint. We thought 130-135 was a good total on this wicket. We knew they were going to attack us to chase it down in 12 overs. we could take advantage. We just had to be clear with our plans,” he said.
The Afghans face South Africa in the semi-finals of the 2024 T20 World Cup.
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This story originally appeared on ndtv.com read the full story
