The moment Denesh Ramdin was stumped by Mohammad Shahzad, off leggie Rashid Khan, the wicketkeeper and the bowler folded their arms close to the body and thrust them out, miming the Champion, a trademark Dwayne Bravo gig.
As wickets continued to tumble at the Vidarbha Cricket Association stadium on Sunday, the Afghanistan players got braver and impersonated other Calypso celebrations, something that is synonymous with the West Indies team.
One could sense the West Indies were increasingly getting flustered with the Afghan celebrations but things never went out of hand. Especially when Chris Gayle, rested for the match, posed for a selfie along with the victorious Afghanistan bunch soon after the memorable victory was completed.
It didn’t come as a surprise that coach Inzamam-ul-Haq stressed on the need to get more exposure at the highest level. “Yes, there is no doubt it’s a big win for us. Whether it’s the ODI or T20 World Cup, we hadn’t won a match [against a top team] so this is definitely big. It’s also a sign that this team can do even better if they get opportunities,” said Inzamam, the former Pakistan captain.
“All our previous matches have been close. The team has been fighting, and the belief was always there. But right now Afghanistan hasn’t had that exposure of playing against big teams. The finishing point has not been seen yet. But now that we have won this, it will definitely help.
“And we had a strong belief that if we can come so close, we can win too. Today it has happened. We could have won against England too, there was a close game against Sri Lanka too. So we knew we had the potential to win, but you still need that win. The more we play against big teams, the more we’ll learn, and can perform even better.”
Inzamam was incredibly pleased with the overall performance of Afghanistan all through the tournament. “We couldn’t play as well as we wanted to, we are not in the semifinals, but we didn’t play like absolute newcomers.
“We tried our utmost to give a tough time to the big teams, to not have one-sided matches and we’re thankful that we have accomplished that. I think it’s terrific for Afghanistan.”
