VIDEO | Gulbadin Naib jokingly tries to pull Eoin Morgan back from reaching his batting crease
Afghanistan cricketers are a bunch of funny characters and they play their cricket in a happier state of mind and today, Gulbadin Naib demonstrated it beautifully. While Eoin Morgan was trying to return to his crease after being cramped for room, Naib tried to pull him back, in good spirits though.
Afghanistan adopted a really weird strategy against England today and despite the hosts not batting like they do - a clear gung-ho approach from the very beginning - they restricted Rashid Khan for far too long and failed to get any sort of advantage. However, that didn’t deter their sporting spirits as they were enjoying the game more than the English team and that was brilliantly demonstrated by their skipper Naib.
On the first ball of the 32nd over, Naib bowled a delivery on the up and skidded through without giving any width to Eoin Morgan. Although the English skipper tried to cut the delivery away, he was cramped for room and chopped the ball onto the boot. In the unconscious mind, he left his crease to take a single and then realised that the ball was nowhere but near his boot to take a single.
Naib, to make the situation a bit lighter, tried to pull Morgan back from reaching the crease and although there was a flick at the striker’s end to effect a run-out, the Afghan skipper laughed it off. The Asian nation didn’t make any appeal and Morgan also gave a sign of approval to the fun made by his counterpart by raising his thumb.