A crushing victory for England against the minnows at The Old Trafford pushed them to number one in the points table. There was no stopping since the time they won the toss, and now they have four wins in 5 games.
Eoin Morgan would not have imagined that he would create a world record after he chose to bat first against Afghanistan. England got a new opener for this ODI, James Vince, who has replaced an injured Jason Roy. Vince and Bairstow added 46 runs in 9.3 overs before Mujeeb caught Vince off Dawlat Zadran’s bowling.
In comes the man in form, Joe Root, who added 120 runs for the 2nd wicket. Bairstow was marching towards his first World Cup hundred, but Afghan skipper Gulbadin took the catch off his bowling. A disappointed Bairstow became the first victim of the nervous nineties of this tournament.
After that, it was just Morgan’s show. When he scored his first run of the innings, Root was on 47, by the time Root added 41 more runs to his tally, Morgan has added 142. Yes, 189 runs partnership of which Morgan who destroyed the bowling scored 142 runs. He smashed 17 sixes, the most by any batsman in ODI innings, fastest hundred for England in World Cup and 4th fastest by anyone in World Cup history.
Just after hitting his 17th six, Morgan lost his wicket. But that didn’t change the tempo of innings. Moeen Ali thrashed the bowlers all over the park; he smashed 31 runs off just nine balls with four sixes which helped England to reach 397 in their 50 overs, an English record.
Watch: England Innings (batting)
Sit back, relax and watch one of the great all-time Cricket World Cup batting displays as @englandcricket and #EoinMorgan re-wrote the record books.#WeAreEngland #CWC19 pic.twitter.com/9Jz9oyPrVD
— ICC (@ICC) June 18, 2019
Afghanistan had nothing to lose in this situation. Although they lost the first wicket in second over, they batted much better compared to their previous four outings in the tournament. Gulbadin Naib (37), Rahmat Shah (46), Hasmatullah Shahidi (76), and Asghar Afghan (44) contributed a significant chunk of runs in Afghanistan’s total of 247. They also added in most sixes in a world cup match record. Jofra and Rashid took three wickets each. England won by 150 runs.
Watch: Afghanistan Innings (batting)
Afghanistan played their part in a record-breaking day with their batsman contributing to a combined ODI record number of sixes.
Watch their biggest and best shots here! ?#AfghanAtalan #CWC19 pic.twitter.com/2c0tZznWl9
— ICC (@ICC) June 18, 2019
STATS
- Eoin Morgan belted 17 sixes in the innings, which is a world record for ODI innings. The previous best was 16 – held by Rohit Sharma and AB de Villiers
- Morgan’s 148 is his highest ODI score and England’s third highest score in World Cups.
- It took just 57 balls for Morgan to reach the hundred, an English record in the World Cup, and 4th fastest by any batsman in World Cup.
- A combined of 33 sixes were hit by both the teams (25 by England and eight by Afghanistan), which is a World Cup record.
- Twenty-five sixes by English batsmen are now the World Record in ODI cricket. England also held the previous record of most sixes by a team in ODI innings.
- Root and Morgan added 189 runs for the third wicket, the most by any English pair for any wicket in World Cup history.
- England’s 397 is now the highest World Cup score for them; they surpassed their best score of 386 which was scored in the same edition against Bangladesh.
- Rashid Khan conceded 110 runs in his nine overs is the most expensive bowling figure in World Cup history. Eleven sixes scored off Rashid is the most ever by a bowler in the history of ODI cricket.
