It is now two wins in two for Afghanistan, who enjoyed another impressive opening stand as Rahmanullah Gurbaz plundered 80 off 56 balls, including five fours and five boundaries, with Ibrahim Zardan adding 44.
Azmatullah Omarzai's dismissal for 22 saw Afghanistan stumble, but with a respectable 159-6, it was always going to be hard for New Zealand to chase.
The 2021 runners-up could not find their footing, with only two of their players reaching double figures – Glenn Phillips top-scored with 18.
They stumbled to 75 all out in just 15.2 overs, suffering their first T20 international defeat to Afghanistan, and they drop to the bottom of Group C.
Elsewhere, Bangladesh survived a scare to make a winning start to their campaign, getting a two-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in Dallas.
Pathum Nissanka impressed with 47 off just 28 balls, but a flurry of late wickets saw Sri Lanka stumble to 124-9 after a strong start.
Bangladesh’s chase started poorly, with both openers being dismissed in the first two overs. However, after Towhid Hridoy's 40, and Liton Das' 36, Mahmudullah's 16 not out helped them over the line at the end of the 19th over.
Data Debrief: Dominant Afghanistan strike again
Afghanistan have opened an ICC Men's T20 World Cup campaign with back-to-back wins for just the second time, last doing so in 2016. They have now won their last four T20Is, their longest streak since 2022.
Gurbaz hit 50 for the second game in a row, improving on his 76 runs in their win over Uganada with 80 in this win.
With matches against the West Indies and New Zealand to come in Group C, Jonathan Trott's side were quick out of the blocks in Guyana.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz (76) and Ibrahim Zadran (70) led the way with an impressive opening stand of 154 after 14.3.overs.
However, Afghanistan collapsed somewhat later on, adding just 29 more runs as they finished at 183-5.
Nevertheless, they were quick to ensure Uganda were unable to build any momentum. Fazalhaq Farooqi dismissed Ronak Patel and Roger Mukasa in consecutive deliveries during the first over.
Indeed, it was a true baptism of fire for the T20 World Cup debutants, who were bowled out for just 58 with four overs still remaining.
Data Debrief
Afghanistan set the tone with a fast start in Georgetown. Zadran and Gurbaz's opening stand of 154 was the second-highest in T20 World Cup history, behind only the 170 of England's Jos Buttler and Alex Hales against India two years ago.
Farooqi then took centre stage in the field, claiming his first five-wicket haul in T20Is and conceding just nine runs - four of which came from his first ball. His 5-9 was the fourth-highest figure in tournament history.
In the encounter at Kingstown in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Afghanistan, propelled by stellar performances from Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Gulbadin Naib, defended a modest total to secure a historic 21-run victory. Afghanistan scored 148 for 6, with Gurbaz contributing 60 runs and Ibrahim Zadran 51, while Cummins took 3-28 and Adam Zampa 2-28. Australia, in reply, managed 127 runs, with Glenn Maxwell top-scoring with 59, while Gulbadin Naib took 4-20 and Naveen-ul-Haq 3-20.
With a semi-final spot on the line, Australia faced a formidable challenge from Afghanistan’s seamers, who decimated their top order early in the innings. Australia’s Glenn Maxwell, renowned for his flamboyant stroke play, attempted to reverse Australia's fortunes with a scintillating performance. Maxwell's aggressive approach saw him unleash a series of audacious shots, including a shovelled four off Azmatullah Omarzai that left him beaming. After notching up a rapid 35-ball half-century, Maxwell signalled confidently to the Australian dressing room, appearing poised to lead his team to victory.
However, Gulbadin Naib had other plans. In a crucial moment, Naib, with the assistance of Noor Ahmad, dismissed Maxwell for 59 off 41 balls. Noor Ahmad's spectacular low catch at backward point off Naib’s delivery halted Maxwell’s momentum and left Australia struggling at 106 for 6 in the 15th over, still needing 43 runs off 32 balls. Naib's exceptional spell yielded career-best figures of 4 for 20, including the prized scalps of Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Tim David, and Pat Cummins, ensuring Afghanistan's first-ever victory over Australia in any format.
Earlier, Afghanistan’s innings was anchored by a solid opening partnership between Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran. The pair forged their third century-stand of the tournament, a first in any T20I series, setting the foundation for a competitive total. Their patient approach initially saw them score just 17 runs off the first four overs, but they accelerated effectively, ending the powerplay at 40 for 0. Gurbaz and Ibrahim’s composed innings, punctuated by strategic big hits, frustrated the Australian bowlers. Despite opportunities to break the partnership, Australia’s fielding lapses allowed the Afghan openers to capitalize. Notably, Zampa and Stoinis missed crucial chances to dismiss Ibrahim, who went on to score 51.
Pat Cummins, Australia’s star pacer, showcased his prowess with a hat-trick across the 18th and 20th overs, replicating his feat from the previous match against Bangladesh. Cummins dismissed Rashid Khan, Karim Janat, and Naib in quick succession, injecting hope into the Australian camp. However, despite his efforts, Afghanistan managed to post a defendable total of 148 for 6. Afghanistan's defence began with Naveen-ul-Haq delivering a masterclass in the powerplay. He bowled Travis Head with a stunning delivery that clipped the middle stump and then dismissed Mitchell Marsh with a deceptive slower ball, leaving Australia reeling at 16 for 2 in three overs.
Maxwell’s subsequent fireworks brought Australia back into the contest, but once he fell, the task became insurmountable. Afghanistan's bowlers, led by Naib and supported by Naveen and Omarzai, maintained relentless pressure, exploiting the St Vincent pitch's turn and variable bounce. Naib’s composed bowling under pressure, including his strategic use of slower deliveries, stifled the Australian lower order. His dismissal of Cummins with a slower cutter epitomized his tactical acumen, and the Afghan fans erupted in celebration as Naveen and Omarzai cleaned up the tail.
Afghanistan entered the final game of the Super 8s requiring a victory to join England, India and South Africa in the last four, while Bangladesh themselves could still qualify via net run-rate with a handsome win.
Both Bangladesh and Australia might have been positive regarding their prospects when Afghanistan reached just 115 in their innings.
Even Rahmanullah Gurbaz's 43 came off 55 balls as they made slow progress, before the opener handed Soumya Sarkar a simple catch off a 17th-over delivery from Rishad Hossain, who impressed with figures of 3-26.
It was the Bangladesh innings that brought the drama, though.
Repeated rain stoppages meant they were left chasing a series of revised targets, and the losses of Najmul Hossain Shanto (5) and Shakib Al Hasan on back-to-back third-over balls, the latter for a golden duck, made their chances of qualification unlikely.
However, they could still send Australia through with any victory, and opener Litton Das did his best to do so, making an unbeaten 54 as wickets tumbled around him.
With Bangladesh nine runs from victory but with just one wicket remaining in the 18th over, it was Naveen-ul-Haq who sealed Afghanistan's place in the last four.
He joined captain Rashid Khan on four dismissals by trapping Mustafizur Rahman lbw, ensuring Afghanistan will face South Africa in a historic semi-final in Trinidad on Thursday.
Data Debrief: Farooqi earns a slice of history
While Afghanistan captain Khan (4-23) and Naveen (4-26) hogged the headlines on a historic day for the team, team-mate Fazalhaq Farooqi also had an outing to remember. He trapped Tanzid Hasan lbw for the first wicket of the Bangladesh innings, his 16th wicket at this year's tournament.
That drew him level with Sri Lanka's PW Hasaranga (in 2022) for the most wickets in a single edition of the T20 World Cup, and he will look to take the record outright against South Africa later this week.
Defending 121, the Strikers' left-arm spinner picked up a hat-trick in the first over of the innings, dismissing Andries Gous, Dewald Brevis and Ibrahim Zadran, to leave Samp Army reeling at 1 for 3.
In his second over, he removed the opposition captain Faf du Plessis and Najibullah Zadran in space of three balls to further rattle Samp Army.
Jason Holder's 22 of 11 and Qais Ahmad's unbeaten 31 off 13 at No.10 meant Samp Army huffed and puffed to 80 for 9.
Earlier, opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz's blazing 56 off 28 set the tone for Strikers to post a competitive 121 for 5. His knock included four fours and five sixes.
In the end, Asif Ali smashed three fours in his unbeaten seven-ball knock of 17 to further lift Strikers.
Samp Army will have a second chance to make the final when they play the winner of the Eliminator between Bangla Tigers and Deccan Gladiators in Qualifier 2 later today.
At the time of publishing, the Tigers were 78-4 off seven overs batting first.
Holder’s three wickets for 36 runs, included the scalp of fellow West Indians Dwayne Bravo (two) and Akeal Hosein (seven), as well as Will Smeed (five), as Pooran’s MI Emirates, were restricted to 159-9, before being put to the sword by Dubai Capitals, who easily got to 160-3 with four overs to spare.
Scores: MI Emirates 159-9 (20 overs); Dubai Capitals 160-3 (16 overs)
Zimbabwe’s spinner Sikandar Raza also bagged three wickets for 21 runs from his four overs for the Capitals and was later named Man-of-the-Match, as his combination with Holder offered the opponents very little room to play their shots.
In fact, apart from opener Muhammad Waseem’s 26-ball 51 which included four sixes and two fours, only Andre Fletcher (30), Pooran (21) and Australian Tim David (27), got into double figures for MI Emirates, who were sent to bat by Dubai Capitals captain David Warner.
Fletcher had two sixes and three fours in his 18-ball knock, while Pooran had a solitary six and four in his 23-ball innings.
The Capitals run chase started shakily, as they lost Warner (one) with 15 runs on the board.
However, Afghanistan’s Rahmanullah Gurbaz (81) and 21-year-old Australian Jake Fraser-McGurk (54), steadied the innings with a 114-run second-wicket stand that erased whatever hopes MI Emirates had of securing victory.
Gurbaz slammed four sixes and eight fours in his 39-ball knock, while Fraser-McGurk, who was brought in for Paul Van Meekeren, had four sixes and four fours in his innings which used a mere 25 balls.
After both fell, Englishman Sam Billings (13 not out), and West Indies T20 captain Rovman Powell (seven not out), saw the Capitals to victory.
New Zealand’s left-arm seamer Trent Boult led the Emirates bowling with two for 23 from four overs.
If you score 98 for 4 in a ten-overs-a-side tournament where three figures are breached quite often, you expect to have it tough in the second half, but it was certainly not the case on the day for Strikers at the Zayed Cricket Stadium on Monday.
Two wickets fell in the first over of the chase, to Akeal Hosein (3 for 7), one each in the second and third, and three in the fifth to Chamika Karunaratne (3 for 6). That was the end of the specialist batters bar Bopara, who was the only Bulls batter to get into double-digits with 16.
The Bulls were bowled out with three balls left in the innings after four batters fell for ducks.
In the first half, Rahmanullah Gurbaz dominated proceedings with a 24-ball 49 not out, as Strikers reached what was a just-about-par score of 98… it proved more than three times what Bulls could manage on the day.
Bulls have now lost two on the bounce after starting with three wins in a row, and are still up at No. 3 on the table, while Strikers, after starting with a loss, have now won three in a row.
Big scores had gone down as the tournament wore on, but Gladiators' 91 for 5 after being sent in appeared insufficient for the big occasion. It proved to be exactly that, despite Strikers being 7 for 2 in 1.1 overs, with openers Muhammad Waseem and Rahmanullah Gurbaz dismissed cheaply.
Niroshan Dickwella and Asif Ali, the Player of the Match, put the innings back on track, before Dickwella was sent back by Andre Russell for a 12-ball 14. From there on, it was all about Asif and captain Kieron Pollard, who put up 56 runs together without much scoreboard pressure to weigh them down.
Asif scored 48 not out in 25 balls with two fours and four sixes, and Pollard chipped in with 22 not out in 13, with a four and six, as Strikers won the title.
The win was set up by the bowlers, though. Gladiators had a decent opening stand of 28 with Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Nicholas Pooran, the No. 1 and No. 3 on the tournament run-scorers' list, but Narine broke through in the third over with Kohler-Cadmore's wicket for a seven-ball 13. Pooran fell to George Scrimshaw two balls later, and Gladiators were suddenly 28 for 2, which became 36 for 3, 41 for 4, and 57 for 5 after 7.1 overs, with Narine returning 2 for 6 from his two overs without conceding a single boundary.
Russell, who finished with an unbeaten 30 from 18 balls with two fours and two sixes, and David Wiese, 20 not out from 11, with a four and two sixes, completed the innings with some momentum, but it was too few for Gladiators to defend on the night.
Powell smashed 56 from just 22 balls to power Northern Warriors to 128-6 from their 10 overs. The Jamaican all-rounder, the leading run-scorer in the tournament with 238 runs, smashed five sixes and four fours as he and Ross Whiteley hit the Delhi Bulls bowlers to all parts.
They were particularly severe on Romario Shepherd, who took 1-42 from his two overs. In Shepherd’s second over that went for 25 runs, he was hit for three consecutive sixes by Powell, who now has a tournament-leading 20 sixes.
Whiteley joined in the carnage hitting the last ball of the Shepherd over for six.
Together, they added 66 in just 19 balls for the fourth wicket partnership after the Warriors had lost the wickets of Kennar Lewis (0), Moeen Ali (10) and Samit Patel (13) with just 34 runs on the board by the fifth over.
Shiraz Ahmed, who eventually got Powell out, was the best of the bowlers with 2-22 from two overs.
In their turn at bat, the Bulls made a mockery of the chase as Rahmanullah Gurbaz destroyed the Warriors’ bowling. He smashed six fours and fives sixes on his way to 70 off 32 balls as he and Luke Wright, who was unbeaten on 40, enjoyed an opening stand of 115.
The partnership was broken in the eighth over when Gurbaz was bowled by Umair Ali.
Romario Shepherd lasted four balls before he was bowled by Rayad Emrit for five. Sherfane Rutherford retired hurt for three so it was left to Wright and Eoin Morgan to administer the final rights, Morgan hitting a six off the penultimate ball of the match to secure the victory.
Emrit’s two overs went for 20 runs and was the most economical of the Warriors’ bowlers as with the exception of Ali, every other bowler used conceded more than 15 runs an over.
After six games, the Delhi Bulls are second in the standings with eight points behind Team Abu Dhabi with 10.
Powell’s Warriors have two points from just one win in their six games and are fifth in the six-team standings.
This will be the third Hero CPL franchise that Shakib has represented having previously played for the Barbados Royals and Jamaica Tallawahs. The Bangladesh all-rounder is the holder of the current record for best bowling figures in a Hero CPL match, having taken 6-6 for the Barbados franchise in 2013.
Afghan international Gurbaz will be making his first appearance at the Hero CPL.
Having played 44 matches for Afghanistan and with experience in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Pakistan Super League (PSL) he will bring a lot of batting power to the Amazon Warriors line-up.
After Allen took one wicket for 26 runs to assist in restricting the Strikers to 188-8, Rossouw exploded in the Kings turn at bat, smashing 12 boundaries and six maximums in a 50-ball knock that secured victory at 190-3 with nine balls to spare, at Dambulla.
Scores: Colombo Strikers 188-8 (20 overs); Jaffna Kings 190-3 (18.3 overs)
After electing to bowl first, the Kings made early inroads, as Asitha Fernando removed Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who made a quick fire 11-ball 27, with the score at 34-1.
Allen took 1-26 from four overs.
Glenn Phillips, with a 32-ball 58, and Angelo Perera, who was left unbeaten on 34, added 86 for the second wicket, before the latter retired hurt. Phillips’ struck six fours and three sixes in his top score, before he fell in the 15th over.
Following his dismissal, the remaining Strikers batsmen struggled to find rhythm, as Fernando (2-38) and Azmatullah Omarzai (2-31) did most damage for the Kings, with Allen getting in on the act.
Meanwhile, the Kings run chase started shakily, as the lost openers Pathum Nissanka (six) and Kusal Mendis (five), with the score at 30-2, before the Rossouw show.
The aggressive left-hander found a useful partner in Avishka Fernando, who made 58 off 35 balls, including seven fours and two sixes. The two put together a record third-wicket partnership of 120 runs, which surpassed the franchise’s previous best of 110 between Shoaib Malik and Avishka Fernando.
Though Fernando fell in the 15th over to Shadab Khan, the damage was already done, and Rossouw pressed on to seal the win, their fourth of the campaign.
With the win, Kings assumed pole position on the league table with eight points, followed by Galle Marvels (six points), with the Strikers, Dambulla Sixers and Kandy Falcons, all on four points each.