Ireland-Afghanistan match abandoned due to persistent rain
courtesy
|| AFP ||
Bangladesh can win World Cup and that's the beauty of this game, says Dale Steyn
18 Jun 24.jpg)
Rain played spoilsport in T20 World Cup's Super 12 stage as the match between Ireland and Afghanistan at the MCG in Melbourne, has been abandoned.
The Irish were pumped up after stunning England by five runs on Wednesday, but they were forced to share the points at the MCG with winless Afghanistan after rain washed out play without a ball being bowled.
"Very disappointing. We played some really good cricket the other night and were looking forward to this fixture against a team we know really well," said Balbirnie.
"We spoke a lot about it after the England game, about backing up that performance and coming out here and playing some good cricket. We didn't get to show what we could do today, unfortunately.
"If it could have gone our way we could have gone to Brisbane (to play Australia on Monday) with a lot of hopes of going into the next round."
Ritu Moni leads Bangladesh to record chase against Ireland
13 Apr 25
Ireland had form against the Afghans, winning a five-match T20 series 3-2 earlier this year.
Both teams receive one point so Ireland move to second in the Group 1 table.
They sit alongside table-toppers New Zealand, who face Sri Lanka in Sydney on Saturday, on three points.
Afghanistan are bottom of the group on two points and skipper Mohammad Nabi was equally disappointed -- it was their second washout of the tournament.
"The preparation was really good, we learned a lot from our first game against England and worked on our particular mistakes," he said.
"We were fully ready... the plan was to put a score on the board and bring the spinners into the game during the chase."
They next face Sri Lanka in Brisbane on Tuesday.
