World Cup LIVE: Australia take on Afghanistan in Super Eights

Afghanistan captain and Big Bash cult hero Rashid Khan has lauded his team’s upset victory over Australia, which could put his team into the semi-finals.

“It’s a massive win for us as a team and as a nation, in the World Cup, beating champions. I think it’s great feeling,” A beaming Rashid said after the 21-run victory in St Vincent.

Afghanistan were sent in by Mitchell Marsh, but Rashid said he would have batted first, and was happy their score of 149 on an inconsistent pitch.

“That’s something we had in our mind, 140 was a good total on this wicket,” Rashid said. “The belief was always we didn’t finish our innings as we should have. But this is what this wicket is all about. There will be some time that you will struggle, and I think we struggled at the end.“

Captain Mitchell Marsh has conceded that Afghanistan were allowed to score 20 too many runs after a sobering defeat that has left Australia’s chances of qualifying for the semi-finals in serious doubt.

“It was an off night for us in the field, and we own that,” Marsh said after the 21-run loss. “That’s one of the great things about our team as an experienced group. We had an off night, and we’ll be back next game.”

That next game is against India early Tuesday morning (AEST). Win and both teams go through to the semi-finals. Lose and Australia will be relying on winless Bangladesh beating Afghanistan in their last group game, which would allow Australia to sneak into the semi-finals on run rate.

“First and foremost, it becomes really clear now we just need to win, and there’s no better team to do it against one of the biggest challenges in world cricket,” Marsh said. “We’ll remain positive. We had an off night tonight. Absolute full credit to Afghanistan. I thought they were brilliant, and we move on pretty quickly.”

Daniel Brettig sums up Australia’s loss to Afghanistan

Australia’s first loss of the Twenty20 World Cup and their first ever to Afghanistan has left Mitchell Marsh’s team one game away from possible elimination - needing victory over India in the final Super Eights game to be sure of reaching the semi-finals.

Australia remain second on the table in their group ahead of Afghanistan and could still go through to the semi-finals if Bangladesh, without a win, beats Afghanistan in the last group match on Tuesday morning (AEST).

So assured over the first five games, the Australian campaign to hold all ICC trophies at the same time is now in extremely precarious territory after a loss against a team that Cricket Australia currently refuses to play in bilateral matches due to the human rights record of Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership.