It's all over
...for India and Afghanistan. New Zealand qualify for the semi final, and will play England in a couple of nights' time.
The chase was pretty straightforward. Here's how they did it - Williamson and Conway sauntering home.
Spare a thought (or many thoughts) for Afghanistan though. Who knows what shape their cricket will take under the Taliban? All we can hope is that cricket is accessible for all Afghans, however unlikely that seems right now.
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Rashid's done and New Zealand have almost won
27 for 1 are Rashid's figures.
New Zealand need way less than a run a ball. If you're an India fan, you need one of the great World Cup miracles.
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Shahzad sledges
A couple of overs ago, Hamid Hassan nicked Devon Conway off, but no one really appealed, and Conway got away with it. Shahzad has just got wise.
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India evicters?
A bit of banter (not THAT type of banter, Yorkshire Cricket Club) between NZ and India fans.
If NZ win here, they'd have played a leading role in ending India's World Test Championship, ODI World Cup, and now T20 World Cup campaigns.
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Front-loading the bowling?
4 No. of overs remaining in the last 10, from Rashid, Mujeeb and Nabi.
Mujeeb and Nabi have an over apiece left. Rashid has two left. The seamers will need to chip in if they are to squeeze out a win here. New Zealand taking it easy, and aiming to take it deep. Run rate is not an issue for New Zealand so long as they win.
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Rashid's googly castles Guptill
400 No. of T20 wickets for Rashid Khan
Guptill attempts a slog sweep (here I was thinking they wouldn't try to hit boundaries off Rashid) and is bowled by the googly. That's Rashid's 400th T20 wicket. Only Dwayne Brave (553), Sunil Narine (425), and Imran Tahir (420) have more.
Can Rashid turn this game, though? Looks increasingly unlikely.
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New Zealand are cruising though
After the powerplay, New Zealand (red line) are incredibly well-placed at 45 for 1. Afghanistan (blue) had been 23 for 3.
Rashid Khan has been held back, but he's into the attack now.
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Mujeeb gets Mitchell
First ball of his second over, he bowls a wide carrom ball, but it doesn't take a lot of spin. Mitchell pushes at it, gets an outside edge, and the Mohammad Shahzad is understandably ecstatic after pouching it.
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New Zealand start steady
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15 for no loss after two overs. Afghanistan desperately need wickets if they're going to derail this chase.
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Can Rashid/Mujeeb do a Herath?
They're defending 125 in a virtual quarter final (sort of). Back in 2014, Sri Lanka were in a similar position v New Zealand, and they got one of the great T20I spells from Rangana Herath, and absolutely smoked it. This is a very different pitch, though. And a very different New Zealand team. Can Afghanistan push them though?
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Afghanistan fizzle at the death
37 The number of runs Afghanistan scored off their last 36 balls.
Boult gets two wickets in the 19th over. Neesham keeps Mujeeb and Rashid Khan quiet in the last, conceding just two (!) thanks to a decent sequence of yorkers. When Rashid finally gets bat to it, he holes out too. New Zealand have finished beautifully, having also started brilliantly. They'll be confident.
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An eventful over
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After a few quiet overs, things perk up in the 18th, bowled by Southee. Zadran bashes another six down the ground first ball. Later, he top edges a bouncer for four through vacant fine leg. Last ball, Nabi tries to drill Southee down the ground, but succeeds only in thumping it back to the bowler who does well to hold the catch.
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Boundary drought part II
21 Balls since Afghanistan scored a boundary, at the end of the 17th over.
Not helping things is the fact that Nabi didn't quite slide his bat over the popping crease as the batters were running two, and the umpires call one short and deduct one of Afghanistan's runs.
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Where Najib scored
Najibullah, who is very much holding this Afghanistan innings together, has got to a sixth T20I fifty. Here's where he scored - very strong on the legside.
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Milne bowls out
New Zealand have decided they don't need Milne at the death. And he's been fantastic in his four overs today, taking 1 for 17. Here's how they went:
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Afghanistan's first sixes
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1w
Najibullah Zadran is teeing off a bit now, against the left-arm spin of Mitchell Santner. The first ball of the fourteenth over, he clears his front leg and bashes it all the way down the ground. Then fourth ball, he launches over cow corner. The fielder there, Glenn Phillips, almost gets a hand to it, but Najibullah's hit it a little two well.
Nineteen from that over, which also included a wide.
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Gulbadin chops on
Just when the partnership between Gulbaadin and Najibullah seemed to be digging Afghanistan out of their hole a bit, Gulbadin sees a wide-is ball from Ish Sodhi, tries to flay it away on the off side, but only gets a bottom edge to it, which then ricochets into the stumps.
This has been the story of Afghanistan's innings at the halfway stage. Only one decent partnership. And even that's over now.
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Afghanistan's first good over
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Najibullah Zadran gets a couple of boundaries off James Neesham, and Afghanistan get 12 off the ninth over - the first time they've scored more than ten off in the innings. The first boundary was a lofted shot down the ground, the second was cut shot, the ball flashed away fine of third man.
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Boundary drought
4 Number of boundaries Afghanistan have hit in the first eight overs.
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Powerplay pain for Afghanistan
Two overs from Tim Southee.
Two from Trent Boult.
Two from Milne.
They each take a wicket and Afghanistan are three down, scoring at less than four an over.
Afghanistan, struggling keep their heads above water here. They do have some firepower left, but this is a nightmare start. Have we already seen the definitive period of the game?
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NZ seamers rampant in the Powerplay
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1lb
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Only two boundaries in the innings so far, and Afghanistan have also lost their second wicket - Hazratullah Zazai closing the face of the bat a little too early to a Trent Boult ball, and giving an easy leading edge catch to short midwicket.
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Milne gets Shahzad!
What a crazy dismissal! Devon Conway does pretty well to hold on to it in the end. This is a fast bouncer just outside off stump from Adam Milne, and Mohammad Shahzad tries to thwack this over third man. Ends up bottom-edging it to keeper Conway, who jumps to get his right glove to it, but doesn't make a clean grab. Gets it on the second rebound though.
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Afghanistan love
No surprises that millions of India fans are rooting for Afghanistan here (so long as they don't beat New Zealand by SUCH a huge margin that their net run rate will challenge India).
R Ashwin had jokingly tweeted that India should offer the services of their physio to get Mujeeb ready for this match. He tweets his Afghanistan support again.
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What's going on at the ground?
While the anthems are going on, Deiva Muthu, our guy at the ground has this:
It's another scorching afternoon in Abu Dhabi. Trust me, having been born and brought up in Chennai, I thought it won't be a challenge, but now it's getting to me (although there's been a flooding alert issued to Chennai this morning). All eyes are on Mujeeb Ur Rahman. He was the first to turn up for Afghanistan training and wheeled away at the adjacent strip for around 30 minutes in the heat. The picket fence enclosures on the grass banks are empty today, but there's a fair sprinkling of Afghanistan fans at gates A11, A12, and A13. Big cheers as Nabi leads Afghanistan into the field for the national anthems. You bet there are more cheers for them from the India fans back home.
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Afghanistan's last game?
If they lose, and even if they win, this could be Afghanistan's last dance at this T20 World Cup. They've qualified already for next year's World Cup, and have tours coming up. But given the incredibly fraught political situation at home since the recent Taliban takeover, we're not really sure what's going to happen to Afghanistan cricket. Here's what Karthik Krishnaswamy wrote in our match preview:
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The XIs
How the teams line up. New Zealand are unchanged.
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Afghanistan will bat, Mujeeb in
So, while in the first couple of weeks of this tournament, it seemed like a significant advantage to chase targets, the last week of play has sort of seen a turnaround, in which teams now seem much more comfortable setting and defending a target (South Africa v England yesterday being the latest example.
Anyway, with no dew to worry about (it's a day game), and their top-quality trio of spinners around (Rashid, Mujeeb, and Nabi), they are backing themselves to defend whatever their batters put up.
Here's how the teams have gone in their last five matches.
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Mujeeb to play?
Big news for Afghanistan is that Mujeeb - who missed the last two games through injury - looks like he will play in this one.
Meanwhile, at least one New Zealand fan is nervous.
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Hold on to your butts
Hello? This thing on?
You've arrived at our live blog for this CRUCIAL group 2 game. As you can see from the table above, New Zealand can shut India out of the semi-final (an outcome few would have predicted before the tournament) by winning this match against Afghanistan.
If Afghanistan win (and particularly if they win big, improving their net run rate), they give themselves a chance to qualify in second place as well, because then it becomes a three-way dead heat between themselves, India, and New Zealand - the tie to be broken by net run rate.
India's final Super 12 match tomorrow is against Namibia, which I'm sure they will back themselves to win by a big margin, given how their games against Afghanistan and Scotland have gone.
This could be a cracker.
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