Delhi: In the Asia Cup 2025, Bangladesh defeated Afghanistan by 8 runs and kept their hopes alive in Super 4. After the defeat of Sri Lanka in the last match, it was very important for Bangladesh to win this match and the team performed brilliantly under pressure.

Bangladesh’s strong start

Batting first, Bangladesh scored a challenging score of 154/5 against Afghanistan’s strong bowling attack. Openers Saif Hasan and Tanjid Hasan gave a concrete start to the team by adding 63 runs for the first wicket. Saif was dismissed for 30 runs, but Tanjid scored 51 runs while playing an aggressive innings.

By the 11th over, Bangladesh’s score was 87/1 and the team looked in a position to score more than 180 runs. However, the Afghanistan bowlers made a strong comeback and applied a brake on the rungall and limited Bangladesh to 154 runs. Rashid Khan took 2 wickets for 26 runs, while Noor Ahmed took 2 wickets for 23 runs.

Afghanistan’s weak start

Afghanistan’s team, which came out to chase the target, could not recover from the initial tremors. By the 13th over, only 77 runs were found on the scoreboard and five batsmen of the team had returned to the pavilion.

Umarzai and Rashid raised hope

In this difficult situation, Ajmatullah Umarzai made the match exciting by scoring 30 runs off 16 balls. After his dismissal, Rashid Khan also put some fast shots and gave a tough fight to Bangladesh. However, his effort proved insufficient and the entire team of Afghanistan collapsed for 146 runs.

Rashid Khan’s statement after defeat

After the defeat, Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan said, “We remained in the match till the last, but could not win. It was possible to score 30 runs off 18 balls, but we did not play the aggressive cricket for which we are known. In batting we played irresponsible shots and increased the pressure on ourselves. We made a brilliant comeback in bowling and we stopped in bowling and he stopped in batting, but he was in batting.”

Rashid further said that every match in the Asia Cup is important and the team will have to face a big challenge against Sri Lanka.