It’s a well-known fact that the weekends are for high-stakes fixtures in all mega sporting events. England taking on Afghanistan surely on Sunday wasn’t one. It was a clash between the defending champions and a team that had a grand total of one victory in their last 17 World Cup matches. It was bound to go in one way. Afghanistan have repeatedly shown their ability to dominate the game in patches, but closing out after gaining an upper edge hasn’t been their forte.

This doesn’t come naturally to any team. You overcome jitteriness and nerves by subjecting yourself to such conditions more often, against teams that are significantly better than yours. But such has been the economics of the game, Afghanistan rarely gets an invitation to play out against big teams. These are not excuses, but a reality.

But Afghanistan, in front of a jubilant, boisterous Delhi crowd, conjured up an alternative reality, taking it upon themselves to deliver the first David vs Goliath story of the tournament. They didn’t just beat the world’s most fearsome unit, but also hammered a massive dent in their qualification hopes. Because of their comprehensive defeat, every game that England plays from here on will be a virtual knock-out. They have already exhausted their quota of slip-ups, with six matches still to be played.

 

What has gone wrong for them? It’s a combination of too many things. On Sunday though, it was their reading of conditions, or say misreading, that ultimately led to their downfall. On a pitch where spinners dominated the proceedings, Jos Buttler had picked Adil Rashid as the sole spinner. Chris Woakes and Reece Topley looked far from threatening, and they were duly punished by Rahamanullah Gurbaz, who smashed four sixes and eight fours before rotten luck had him run out on 84. Sam Curran saw his 24 balls flying for 46 runs, while Mark Wood had 50 knicked off in his nine overs that also yielded two wickets.

It was their spinner who managed to squeeze the run-flow. Adil Rashid bowled brilliantly for 42-3 in ten wickets, and he was duly assisted by part-timers, Joe Root and Liam Livingstone, whose combined figures of 49 runs in 14 overs is no comparison to 87 runs that pacers, Woakes and Curran, leaked out. England rued leaving out Moeen Ali.

“Yeah, he [Moeen] was close [to being picked] and yeah, the selection was… having watched the first couple of games here obviously India went with the extra seamer as well in their lineup,” said Buttler after the match. “We thought the wicket would play similarly and maybe the dew would come in in the second half.”

 

Misjudging the conditions and messing up their playing XI has been the story of this tournament for England. They would also consider themselves a bit unlucky for being at the receiving end of that merciless assault from Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra. Wood had one of those days where everything went wrong for him, while Chris Woakes and Sam Curran never looked threatening at any point. When they brought in Reece Topley in the next game, he ended up picking four wickets.

“Yeah, it’s a big setback obviously. Before the tournament starts you have a different idea of how the first three games would pan out,” Buttler said. The English captain himself had a lukewarm start to the campaign, failing to close out games with his trademark aggressive play. Theoretically, they have a deep batting line-up, with Mark Wood coming in at No. 10. Though it hasn’t unfolded per plans. Buttler had conceded how they had fallen short of runs in the first game, but remained firm and hopeful that his team would step up. So far they haven’t. Dawid Malan, a man whose place was confirmed only weeks before the tournament, has been their best batter so far. Joe Root too had a fine start, but a lack of support from the middle-order has been concerning.