World Cup 2019: Gulbadin Naib tries to stop Eoin Morgan from reaching his crease in jest

England and Afghanistan are amidst a very entertaining encounter in the 24th match of the ICC World Cup 2019 at Old Trafford in Manchester. The hosts England are coming off a very comfortable win over the Windies in their last match, while Afghanistan is yet to make any mark in the tournament having lost all the four matches they have played so far.

Eoin Morgan won the toss and chose to bat first only to put the Afghanistan bowlers at his batsmen’s mercy. Despite losing James Vince early, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow pummelled the opposition and the real hammering started when the skipper himself walked out to the middle. When the southpaw had just arrived, Gulbadin Naib, Morgan’s counterpart, jokingly tried stopping the England skipper from reaching his crease.

The incident took place in the 32nd over when Eoin Morgan dabbed the ball to the off-side and tried to set off for a single. But with the fielders, including Naib, converging to get hold of the ball, the England batsmen decided against it. However, when Morgan was coming back to his crease, the Afghanistan captain tried to stop him from reaching the crease. In all the haste, the batsman lost his bat only for Gulbadin Naib to give it back as there were smiles all around.

Morgan goes ballistic

However, Eoin Morgan went ballistic soon and ripped apart the Afghanistan bowling line-up. He took a liking to every bowler who came his way and smashed a world record 17 sixes. The left-hander went to score a massive 148 runs off just 71 deliveries and laced his innings with four fours apart from the massive maximums. Joe Root was unlucky to miss out on a well-deserved century and got out for 88 while Bairstow also missed out on a ton by 10 runs.

England went on post a mammoth total of 397 runs for the loss of six wickets in 50 overs even as Moeen Ali had some fun with an unbeaten 31 off nine balls. He also smacked four lusty blows out of the ground as England have almost batted the opposition out of the match.