Afghanistan Qualify Tournament, Ready for 2019 Cricket World Cup

Afghanistan started its campaign in the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018 to find its way to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. Afghanistan missed out on automatic qualification due to its inability to be in the top eight on the ICC ODI team ranking. Ten teams entered into this competition with only the finalists of the tournament could quality for the two available world cup spots. Afghanistan and the West Indies were the favourites to secure world cup entries alongside Zimbabwe, which had the advantages of the home ground and the crowd. 

Afghanistan made a disappointing start to the tournament. Afghanistan was placed in group B with Zimbabwe, Scotland, Nepal and Hong Kong. The first match was lost to Scotland by seven wickets. Before the Blue Tigers could recover from the first defeat, they lost to Zimbabwe in their second but a tight encounter by only two runs. The biggest upset of the tournament occurred when Hong Kong defeated Afghanistan in their third match by a relatively large margin of 30 runs. With the third defeat in a row, not only the hopes for Afghanistan to qualify for the 2019 world cup looked shaky but its qualification for the second round of the tournament i.e. the super six was more dependent on other teams performances. The win of Nepal over Hong Kong allowed Afghanistan to play in the super six.

Afghanistan had a greater challenge of demonstrating its full potential and be luckier in the super-six stage to play in the final of the tournament. Since Afghanistan has not carried any points from first round to the second round, it looked unlikely for the Blue Tigers to become one of the finalists. Afghanistan not only had to win all its remaining matches but the result of some other encounters had to go in favour of Afghanistan too. The team did its part with defeating West Indies by 3 wickets, and UAE and Ireland by 5 wickets each. However, it was UAE who made the second upset of the tournament by beating Zimbabwe and allowed Afghanistan the opportunity to qualify for the world cup. 

In the final match, Afghanistan beat the tournament’s hot favourite, the West Indies, comprehensively by 7 wickets and 56 balls to spare. Indeed, it was not less than a miracle for Afghanistan winning the title of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018, after three early defeats in the tournament. Afghanistan team proved that at the end of the day commitment, dedication and self-belief pay off and make the difference. We hope that Afghanistan has learned a lot of lessons from this tournament and will perform better in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 in England.