The New Zealand team led by Kane Williamson fell victim to a major upset in the T20 World Cup 2024. New Zealand suffered an 84-run defeat at the hands of Afghanistan on Saturday. This is New Zealand’s biggest defeat in terms of runs in the T20 World Cup. The Afghan team scored 159/6 at Guyana ground. In response, New Zealand’s innings collapsed to 75 runs in 15.2, which is their fourth lowest score in T20 cricket. Afghanistan captain and star leg-spinner Rashid Khan took four wickets. Pacer Fazalhaq Farooqui also got the same number of wickets. New Zealand captain Williamson has expressed the pain of the shameful defeat. He said that Afghanistan has defeated us in all three departments.
Let us tell you that after the match, Williamson said that, first of all congratulations to the Afghanistan team. They defeated us in every department. To reach that score, Afghanistan saved their wickets and scored well. We have to forget this defeat quickly and focus on our next challenge. The players worked hard for this match but had to face difficulties. We need to move forward now. Games come fast in this tournament. It was difficult to chase a target of 160 runs. We needed a partnership. The skills that Afghanistan’s spinners have made our path difficult. Our fielding was disappointing, especially in the first 10 overs, we had chances which we could not capitalize on.
Kane further said that, we need to take steps in the right direction. We know that we are better than today’s performance. We have to move forward and give ourselves the best chance to play in the next match. We did not take advantage of our opportunities and this proved to be very helpful in changing the result of the match.
On the other hand, New Zealand, which is part of Group C, will face West Indies in their second match of the tournament. This match will be held on 12 June at Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad.
