World T20 Cricket: Luke Wright helps England crush Afghanistan

By Sam SheringhamBBC Sport

Last updated on .From the section Cricketcomments47

Luke Wright
ICC World Twenty20 Group A, Colombo
England 196-5 (20 overs) beat Afghanistan 80 (17.2 overs) by 116 runs
Match scorecard

Luke Wright hit 99 not out as England began their World Twenty20 defence with a crushing 116-run win over Afghanistan to book a place in the Super Eights.

England were 0-1 after one over and 15-1 after four, but Wright, Alex Hales and Eoin Morgan transformed the innings with a barrage of boundaries.

Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow added late muscle to drive England to 196-5.

Afghanistan lost two wickets in the first seven balls and crumbled to 80 all out to go out of the tournament.

Jade Dernbach, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann and Samit Patel all took two wickets but there was no doubt about the man of the match.

Wright had been in the international wilderness for 15 months before he replaced the out-of-form Ravi Bopara for the two pre-tournament matches against South Africa earlier this month.

An inconsistent performer for England in the past, he has clearly benefited from spells in the Indian Premier League and Aussie Big Bash and come back with a game based around clean, straight hitting.

The Sussex all-rounder smashed six sixes and eight fours in 55 balls as he amassed his highest score in 79 limited-overs matches for England, missing out on a century by one run when he could only collect two from the last ball of the innings.

Wright entered the fray with England in a pickle after Craig Kieswetter played on from the last ball of a maiden first over from Shapoor Zadran.

He began slowly, but his innings took off in the fifth over as he drilled Shapoor for a straight four and a six after Hales had got England going with consecutive boundaries.

The duo added 69 for the second wicket before Hales was run out backing up when bowler Karim Sadiq diverted Wright's drive onto the non-striker's stumps.

Morgan kept up the momentum with a breezy 27 and Buttler bashed 15 off seven balls before he was trapped lbw by Izatullah Dawlatzai.

Bairstow bludgeoned his first ball into the stands and Wright smashed poor Izatullah for three sixes in a row to surge into the nineties.

Bairstow was out for 12 in the last over, leaving Wright to face the last ball on 97. A low full toss was heaved away to leg but when the wide long-on fielder did his job Wright had to settle for two, and 99 not out.

Afghanistan showed tremendous spirit in but they never came close to troubling a ruthless England side.

Their run chase got off to a woeful start when big-hitting opener Mohammad Shahzad skied the last ball of the first over to mid-off and was swiftly followed back to the pavilion by Shafiqullah, who perished playing a similarly reckless shot.

Superb fielding accounted for the next three wickets as Broad held on to a sharp caught-and-bowled chance to remove captain Nawroz Mangal, Buttler ran out Karim Sadiq and Asghar Stanikzai was brilliantly caught by Bairstow running in from long leg.

Spinners Patel and Swann rattled through the next three batsmen to leave Afghanistan in a hopeless predicament on 26-8, only for an entertaining 44 by Gulbodin Naib to spare them the ignominy of the lowest Twenty20 international total - the 67 scored by Kenya against Ireland in 2008.

Naib's innings merely delayed the inevitable and when he was the last man out, caught by Morgan off Dernbach, Afghanistan's World Twenty20 adventure was over.

England, meanwhile, go on to face India on Sunday with both teams already through to the last eight.

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47 comments

  • Comment posted by dickonbear, at 21:41 21 Sep 2012

    15 I, for one, am delighted that Afghanistan is giving cricket a whirl. And my problem with the 'World Series' designation is not the fact that American rounders is even more of a minority sport than cricket. It is the fact that the few other nations that do play the game, eg Japan, don't get to play in the tournament.

  • Comment posted by Unlimited, at 20:23 21 Sep 2012

    Great display from England. They looked ruthless. They didn't take their foot off the gas either Naib played very well and needs to be given credit. We looked a good bowling unit and Wright batted superbly. Afghanistan definitely have talent but really need to work on their fielding, which was very poor in both games, and stop conceding so many extras. It put too much pressure on the batters.

  • Comment posted by U15422885, at 22:29 21 Sep 2012

    It is a shame that there's no coverage on terrestial of this - yet again. It's all well and good people saying what good Sky have done for the game and other sports but kids these days aren't able to watch big tournaments - unless you've got the money to blow on Sky/Cable (etc.). I remember getting up ridiculously early in 1987 to watch the World Cup final aged just 11 - on bbc!

  • Comment posted by U14800392, at 18:43 21 Sep 2012

    Great stuff from Luke Wright. If he can hit 90m then perhaps we can do without KP. I find it a bit sad that there appears to be nothing, not even highlights, on terrestrial television, of such an important competition.

  • Comment posted by Will123bay, at 22:09 21 Sep 2012

    I love it no.15!

    Cricket might not be an all encompassing sport like football but at least it has 8 international teams that could genuinely win the World Cup.

    The Baseball world series has one international team competing - the United states of America! The only time a 'foreign' side has been allowed to compete it has beaten all the American teams involved... Absolutely hilarious!

  • Comment posted by U15432798, at 20:55 21 Sep 2012

    Having followed Luke Wright's career for a while I understand why he's been in the wilderness. The potential has been there for a while, but consistency / belief has been lacking in the past. Has the potential to be a great T20 allrounder and has always had a great attitude. Onwards and upwards hopefully.

  • Comment posted by U11264858, at 20:08 21 Sep 2012

    Good start for Eng. After the defeat to Netherlands in a previous opener, you can never assume a steam roller win, so to get nearly 200 and bowl a team out was impressive.

  • Comment posted by Royalist to the bone, at 20:07 21 Sep 2012

    Well done Luke. Overlooked for a long time.

  • Comment posted by U14966550, at 19:21 21 Sep 2012

    England were expected to crush Afghanistan, and they did. So, job done with minimum fuss, that's all you can hope for.

  • Comment posted by U15432656, at 18:47 21 Sep 2012

    People will sneer and say 'This is only Afghanistan and a result like this should be expected if we are to have a chance of winning this competition'. Not true at all. You can only beat whoever is placed in front of you, and England did extremely well to beat Afghanistan so convincingly. Luke Wright looks some player recently, as do the other members of the top order. Great start England

  • Comment posted by mydogsgotnonose, at 06:37 22 Sep 2012

    met Luke in Wellington Hospital a few years ago, must have fixed him up good! well done lad

  • Comment posted by EPF, at 21:40 21 Sep 2012

    Bcamuk

    I'll bite, you clearly don't know the history of these guys. They qualified for the last ICC T20 as well as this one and they also could easily have beaten India 2 days ago, but, well you know better, you have a mock. Please enjoy.

    BTW, their opening bowler (Afganistan) could easily take your head off, bowling at 95 mph accurately!

  • Comment posted by Robert Puddy, at 21:08 21 Sep 2012

    considering we demolished them, and India could only just beat them by 23 runs says a lot about the england team

  • Comment posted by Luther, at 20:21 21 Sep 2012

    7.
    they need to beat the team they are playing - they did...

  • Comment posted by dickonbear, at 18:43 21 Sep 2012

    Well done England. Luke Wright's third good innings on the trot is a huge confidence-booster, as is the sharpness of most of the England fielding. But I confess that, by the fall of the 8th wicket, I was really rooting for Afghans not to end up with the lowest T20 international score. So glad they didn't!

  • Comment posted by Monster Munch, at 12:22 22 Sep 2012

    As far as I am concerned the more countries playing cricket the better, so in that respect a warm welcome to Afghanistan. Twenty years ago Sri Lanka were the new kids on the block, they are now a force to be reckoned with, Bangladesh are now on the up too, who knows where the Afghans will end up...who will be next?

  • Comment posted by spurschuggger, at 12:06 22 Sep 2012

    @39 From cricket to that in just 39 comments. Thats possibly a tangent setting world record

  • Comment posted by TheOracleofDelphi, at 08:08 22 Sep 2012

    @35

    Hardly the same thing. Now if Afghanistan had been playing a team from the time of the Catholic Inquisiton, then you might have a point!

    But enough of that. What did you think about the cricket match?

  • Comment posted by TheOracleofDelphi, at 07:47 22 Sep 2012

    @30 Paul Smith

    Your analogy would only hold water if the England of Christmas 1914 had contained a group of religious nutters hellbent on a regime of oppression. One where it is acceptable to throw acid into the faces of young girls simply because they want to go to school.

    I suggest you stick to commenting on the cricket match, rather than blethering nonsense.

  • Comment posted by U14187439, at 00:02 22 Sep 2012

    Good win by England with an excellent knock by Wright. Re Afghanistan cricket, watch the superb documentary 'Out of the Ashes', it's the story of how the Afghans made it to the 2010 T20 WC. It's both funny and poignant but most of all it's about a group of guys who are playing cricket because they love the game and not for fame and fortune.

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