June 18, 07:49 (IST)
WI vs AFG Live Score: Windies’ highest T20 World Cup score
West Indies have broken the record for the highest runs scored in a first innings at the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, surpassing the previous record in the history of the tournament. The match in St Lucia was a spectacle, with West Indies attacking at full speed from the start. Despite Brandon King’s early departure, Johnson Charles and Nicholas Pooran launched a ferocious attack on the Afghanistan bowlers. Charles started somewhat shaky but was able to hit boundaries regularly and Pooran wasted no time, smashing the ball into the stands with a clean strike.
The duo took full advantage of the Powerplay, scoring a staggering 92 runs – the highest Powerplay score in the history of a T20 World Cup. The opposition’s bowling attack was in tatters. Charles was dismissed for 43, but his contribution ensured his team’s strong start. The pace of the match dropped slightly around the mid-point as Pooran and Hope focused on rotating the strike and carefully fending off the spinners. They added 33 runs to their total before Hope was dismissed for 25.
Nicholas Pooran had started well and went on to score a fine half-century, but the scoring rate had dropped slightly at this stage, but was still around 10 runs per over. Captain Rovman Powell, who needed the runs, scored a solid 26. Pooran then went all out and launched a fierce attack on Rashid in the 18th over, knocking him down for 24 runs to open the scoring once and for all. His innings was studded with eight huge sixes, but unfortunately he fell just three runs short of a well-deserved hundred.
In the end, West Indies posted an impressive total of 218.