Indian spin bowler Ravichandran Ashwin made a special request to Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform ‘X’ (previously Twitter), after seeing a false accusation against the Afghanistan cricket team made by a Pakistani journalist. It’s important to note that Afghanistan defeated Australia by 21 runs in the 48th match of the T20 World Cup 2024, which kept them in the competition and almost knocked Australia out.
After their victory, a journalist from Pakistan said something strange, claiming that Afghanistan can defeat any cricket team in the world, except for India. The reason, according to the journalist, is that Afghanistan players get good contracts from the Indian Premier League, which is a strong cricket league in India. However, this statement upset Ashwin, a cricketer, who asked Elon Musk, the owner of X, to prevent such comments from appearing on the platform’s timeline.
Afghanistan can beat any team in the world except India for obvious reasons. IPL contracts are very precious,” a Pakistani journalist had written on his X account.
“I can’t tell u what to do @elonmusk but I should certainly have the right to decide who enters my house. My timeline my decision ,” wrote Ashwin in reply.
Afghanistan won against Australia for the first time in international cricket during their sixth match in limited-overs formats. Afghanistan batted first and scored a decent 148/6 in their 20 overs. The opening batsmen, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (60 from 49 balls) and Ibrahim Zadran (51 from 48 balls), gave their team a strong start by scoring 118 runs for the first wicket in 95 balls.
After Gurbaz and Zadran were out, Pat Cummins (3/28) achieved his second consecutive hat trick in the tournament by dismissing Rashid Khan (2 from 5 balls), Karim Janat (13 from 9 balls), and Gulbadin Naib (0 from 1 ball). Adam Zampa (2/28) also took two wickets, helping Australia keep Afghanistan’s score below 150.
In the second half of the game, Australia’s attempt to catch up began poorly. Naveen ul Haq (3/20) took out Travis Head (0 from 3 balls) and Mitchell Marsh (12 from 9 balls). Mohamad Nabi also got a key player, David Warner (3 from 8 balls), making Australia’s score 32/3. Glenn Maxwell tried to save the day for Australia by scoring a great 50 runs (59 from 41 balls).
But when Gulbadin Naib (4/20) got Maxwell out in the 15th over, it looked like Afghanistan might win. Australia was all out at 127 runs in 19.2 overs. This win was a big deal for Afghanistan and put Australia in a tough spot in the T20 World Cup. Their last game against India could now decide if they stay in the running for the 2024 championship.
