The game between Australia and Afghanistan witnessed a huge umpiring mistake that went unnoticed and was later highlighted on social media.
Only five deliveries were bowled in the fourth over of Australia’s innings which was bowled by Naveen-ul-Haq.
Umpiring mistake leads to a 5-ball over
The game against Afghanistan was a must-win game for the Aussies to keep their semifinal hopes alive. They needed to win by a huge margin in order to improve their Net run rate which was negative. This umpiring howler could’ve been terrible for the Australian Team.
Aussie opener David Warner and Mitchell Marsh faced Naveen-ul-Haq in the fourth of the innings and just faced five deliveries among themselves. The first two deliveries went for a single and the third one for a boundary. Three runs were scored on the fourth delivery while the fifth delivery went for no run. Eventually, there were just five deliveries bowled in the over.
The Group 1 of the mega T20 World Cup has been termed a group of death by a number of former players. There’s close competition amongst England, New Zealand, and Australia to qualify for the semi-final while Sri Lanka too had a bleak chance to qualify till yesterday.
Team New Zealand is now through to the semifinals while there’s close competition between England and Australia in terms of net run rate. Considering this, the Aussies wanted to grab a victory by a huge margin in order to be better placed in the points table but it wasn’t possible as Afghanistan went really close to their total and lost by just four runs.
Given how important facing every ball was for Australia, this error could’ve been huge as Rashid Khan almost took his side home as he played a scintillating knock of 48 runs off just 23 deliveries and the missed delivery might have become significant for the Aussies.
Australia after defeating Afghanistan is placed with 7 points and a net run rate of -0. 17 as they will have a close look at the England vs Sri Lanka game which will decide the second semi-finalist from the Group 1 of the Super 12 stage.