The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

The Liebke Ratings: Afghanistan vs Australia

2nd June, 2019
Advertisement
Autoplay in... 6 (Cancel)
Up Next No more videos! Playlist is empty -
Replay
Cancel
Next
Expert
2nd June, 2019
7
3343 Reads

The warm-up matches have been played, allowing those of us who purport to write humorous summaries of matches to trial our second-string running gags away from the harsh spotlight of the official tournament.

We’ve assessed which up-and-coming jokes might be ready for the big stage, made some tough decisions about puns and wordplay competing for the same spot and given the nod to comic concepts that we’re confident will rise to the occasion.

Here then are the ratings for the World Cup match between Afghanistan and Australia.

Phases
Grade: A-

Afghanistan won the toss and elected to bat first. But as has happened so often in recent times, the results of this election confounded the experts. Mohammad Shahzad was immediately McCullumed by Mitchell Starc, bowled from the third ball of the match.

His opening partner Hazratullah Zazai was caught behind, also for a duck, off the bowling of Pat Cummins in the next over. Suddenly, any chance Afghanistan had of winning the first phase was gone.

‘First phase?’ you say. ‘What’s the first phase?’

I’m glad you asked. It’s a thrilling new innovation brought in by the World Cup broadcasters where after every ten overs (or ‘phase’, as you and I have always called it) they work out who won the phase and award that team a point. This makes it much easier to understand what’s going on.

Advertisement

After all, there’s absolutely no sense in having a scorecard that claims Afghanistan were 2/37 after their first ten overs when you can instead say they were 1-0 down in the phase score.

Similarly, after 20 overs, a traditional scorecard would have had them at 4/77, and fans’ minds would be reeling in confusion. But tell those same fans that Australia are 2-0 up and now they suddenly understand that Afghanistan were in trouble.

Booing
Grade: B+

The Afghanistan side were in even more trouble one ball into the third phase when an excellent diving stop from a sharp Steve Smith caused confusion and the run out of Mohammad Nabi.

Smith (along with fellow sandpaper person David Warner) were back in the Australian side. They knew, from the warm-up matches, that they would cop plenty of booing from the English spectators.

I wholeheartedly support the booing of Smith and Warner. To commit such a heinous crime, receive no punishment for it and show zero remorse? Why it’s no wonder that English crowds, usually so level-headed and fair when it comes to interacting with Australian players, had been driven to uncharacteristic booing.

Coach Justin Langer is less understanding, however, revealing to the media that he’d be ‘disappointed’ if either player was booed. And since earning the respect of Langer has, as far as I understand, always been a key motivator for your average cricket-going Englishman, one must assume that the prospect of any further booing has now been nipped in the bud. Good work, JL.

Advertisement

Besides, even if the occasional dissatisfied murmur could be heard by keen ears at the ground, it certainly didn’t seem to affect either Smith or Warner. Along with the run out, Smith took an equally sharp catch. Warner later made 89* in the run chase.

Booooo!

David Warner celebrates a half century.

(Photo by Andy Kearns/Getty Images)

Oscar Wilde
Grade: A

Despite having lost five wickets, Afghanistan fought back, with a run-a-ball partnership of 83 between Gulbadin Naib and Najibullah Zadran. After the third phase, it was now just 2-1 to Australia. Yes. Afghanistan had picked up a point, alerting us to a fightback we’d otherwise have never noticed.

But both batsman then both suddenly fell in one Marcus Stoinis over, both caught by Alex Carey after both their pull shots were both top-edged straight up.

As Oscar Wilde famously said, “To lose one set batsman skying a Stoinis short ball may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

Advertisement

Close Matches
Grade: D

Some late order hitting saw Afghanistan reach 207, a target that would prove challenging for Australia.

I mean, it had to prove challenging. Because one of the bogus reasons the ICC had given to justify their reduction of the tournament to a mere ten teams was that it would ensure every match would be close and hard-fought.

We’d already seen this in the World Cup so far. England had scraped home in the first match by a mere 104 runs. The West Indies had then won a nail-biter against Pakistan, running down their target of 106 with just seven wickets in hand. And New Zealand had desperately scrambled past their target in the 34th-last over against Sri Lanka.

So despite seemingly cruising to victory on the back of an almost-century opening partnership between Aaron Finch and Warner, a fifty partnership between Warner and Usman Khawaja and a near-fifty partnership between Smith and Warner, one could sense the tension in the Australian chase.

Why, one just had to look at Glenn Maxwell, panically pounding a match-winning boundary off the first and only ball he faced, to know how tight a match this was.

Favouritism
Grade: A-

Advertisement

Initially, I’d gone along with the common wisdom and thought England would win the World Cup, especially after their victory in the opening match. But since that win over South Africa, England have plummeted to third in the table. Where has it all gone wrong for the home side? There’ll definitely be some soul-searching for the tournament favourites.

Then, after the second match of the tournament, I became convinced it would be the West Indies who’ll eventually hold the trophy aloft, before later becoming certain after the third game, it’ll be New Zealand.

But having seen Australia win this match against Afghanistan 5-1 on the phase score, that’s enough to convince me they’re now the team to beat.

What a topsy-turvy World Cup it’s been so far already.

close