Maxwell's sensational double century powers Australia into semifinals
Mumbai, Nov 7: Battling pain and exhaustion, Glenn Maxwell conjured arguably the greatest knock (201 not out off 128 balls) in the history of limited overs cricket to singlehandedly propel Australia to a sensational three-wicket win over Afghanistan in the World Cup here on Tuesday.
With this, Australia became the third team to enter the semifinals.
Opting to bat, opener Ibrahim Zadran became the first Afghanistan batter to score a World Cup hundred and guided his team to 291 for five.
In reply, Australia were down and out at 91 for seven in the 19th over. That's when Maxwell decided to take charge and led an incredible comeback while adding 202 runs for the eighth wicket with skipper Pat Cummins (12 not out), who watched the mayhem unfolding from the other end.
In all, Maxwell smashed 21 boundaries and 10 sixes.
Earlier, Zadran carried his bat through the innings and finished on 129 not out off 143 balls.
Afghanistan lost opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz for a 25-ball 21 but Zadran and Rahmat Shah stitched 83 runs for the second wicket to lay a good foundation before the latter was dismissed by Glenn Maxwell for a 44-ball 30 in the 25th over with the score reading 121.
Unperturbed by the loss of few wickets at the other end, Zadran continued to accumulate runs at a decent rate to prop up his team against the five-time world champions.
Rashid Khan smashed unbeaten 35 off 18 balls towards the end.
Brief scores:
Afghanistan: 291/5 in 50 overs (Ibrahim Zadran 129 not out; Josh Hazlewood 2/39).
Australia: 293/7 in 46.5 overs (Glenn Maxwell 201 not out).
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Sharad Pawar turns 84, Ajit Pawar joins celebrations
New Delhi (PTI): NCP-SP chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday turned 84 and celebrated his birthday with members of his family and well-wishers, including estranged nephew and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
Pawar, a former Union Minister, cut the birthday cake with a sword at his 6, Janpath residence here, surrounded by party workers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, NCP chief Ajit Pawar and other prominent leaders greeted the octogenarian leader on his birthday.
Ajit Pawar, who parted ways with the senior Pawar last year and handed out a resounding defeat to the veteran leader in the recent Maharashtra assembly polls, was present at the birthday celebrations along with his family members.
Rajya Sabha member Sunetra Pawar, the wife of Ajit Pawar and their son Paarth, visited the senior leader along with NCP leaders Praful Patel, Chhagan Bhujbal and Sunil Tatkare.
"We came today to wish him (Sharad Pawar) on his birthday,” Bhujbal, once a close confidant of the former Maharashtra chief minister said.
Born on December 12, 1940, Pawar took the political plunge while in college and became a protege of veteran Congress leader Yashwantrao Chavan.
A four-term Maharashtra chief minister, the senior Pawar has also served as Defence Minister and Union Agriculture Minister.
Pawar parted ways with the Congress in 1999 over the issue of the foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi to form the Nationalist Congress Party.
In July last year, the NCP witnessed a split with more than two-thirds of the party MLAs supporting Ajit Pawar, who joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government as deputy chief minister.
Later, the Election Commission recognised the Ajit Pawar-led group as the real NCP and asked the Sharad Pawar-led faction to select a new name for the party and an election symbol.
In the Maharashtra assembly elections last month, the BJP-led MahaYuti coalition comprising Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, Ajit Pawar-led NCP trounced the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of Congress, Shiv Sena-UBT and NCP-SP.
The MahaYuti won 235 seats, while the opposition alliance was restricted to 46 seats in the 288-member assembly.
