Mujeeb-Ur-Rahman dedicated Afghanistan’s win to the victims of the earthquakes.© X (Twitter)
After orchestrating Afghanistan’s historic win over England in the ICC Cricket World Cup on Sunday, leg-spinner Mujeeb-Ur-Rahman dedicated his team’s win to the victims of the earthquakes which have rocked his country. Mujeeb was named ‘Man of the Match’ his three wickets and 28 runs as Afghanistan edged out England by 69 runs at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Afghanistan has been hit with three earthquakes this week, with the tremors claiming more than 1,000 lives.
Earlier on Sunday, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake killed two people in western Afghanistan.
“This is for the people back home who have been affected by the earthquake. As players and as a team, I wanted to dedicate my award to them,” said Mujeeb.
He added: “It’s a very proud moment to be here in the World Cup beating the last champions, it is a good moment for the whole nation and the team. A wonderful performance for the bowlers and the batters.”
Before Sunday, Afghanistan’s only win at a World Cup came back in 2015 on their debut over Scotland.
Since that tournament, they were on a 14-match World Cup losing streak.
Two of those losses had come at this edition — by six wickets to Bangladesh and eight wickets to India.
“It’s a tough loss to take. Congratulations to Afghanistan, they outplayed us today,” said England captain If Buttler.
“They’ve got a really skilful attack, some fantastic spinners especially.”
The win allowed Afghanistan to climb from bottom to 6th in the points table. They will now take on New Zealand on Wednesday, October 18.
(With AFP Inputs)
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