No result possible due to rain as Australia progress to the knockouts
Match Report:
ScorecardAustralia through to CT semis, Afghan match abandoned
Rain proved the only thing that could stop Travis Head in Lahore as his belligerent, boundary-filled innings headlined Australia's rain-affected chase against Afghanistan.
With the match abandoned following a 45-minute downpour early in the second innings, Australia qualified for the Champions Trophy semi-finals for the first time since 2009.
Head feasted on the Afghanistan attack with a 34-ball half-century and looked on track for yet another memorable knock in an ICC event but was the latest victim of the tournament's inclement weather.
Chasing 274 for victory, Head and opening partner Matt Short found the boundary with devastating regularity after both were granted a life early in their innings.
Head, on six, chipped a catch to mid on where Rashid Khan put down a simple chance while Short, who was clearly hampered by a sore quad, was put down by substitute fielder Nangeyalia Kharote at deep square leg.
Fast bowler Fazalhaq Farooqi was fuming when the ball after Head was dropped off his bowling was whipped over the fine leg fielder for six.
With the run rate at 10 runs per over, Short skied a catch in the fifth over, with Gulbadin Naib running back to take a strong catch.
The arrival of Steve Smith at No.3 didn't stop the flow of runs though as he and Head kept the foot down to take Australia to 1-90 after 10 overs, easily the highest Powerplay score of the Champions Trophy to date (surpassing Australia's own 2-76 v England).
Head's fifty included eight fours and a six, with three fours in a row off Azmatullah Omarzai and a superb ramped boundary off a Farooqi bouncer.
When the unseasonable bad weather hit Lahore after 12.5 overs, the Aussies were already 1-109, well ahead of the par score by still 7.1 overs short of the minimum required for a result.
The rain left massive puddles of water all over the outfield, including significant parts of the bowlers' run up area, creating a clean-up job that was too great a task for the local groundstaff.
Earlier, a tidy Australian bowling performance looked like restricting Afghanistan to under 250 but some late hitting from Azmatullah gave his side something to defend.
Spencer Johnson found some early swing and clean-bowled the dangerous Rahmanullah Gurbaz with an exceptional yorker that was too quick for the opening batter.
Fresh off a tournament-high 177 against England, Ibrahim Zadran got a start (22) but gifted his wicket by hitting an Adam Zampa half-tracker straight to Marnus Labuschagne at point. At the other end, Sediqullah Atal began to find the gaps as Australia's quicks conceded 15 extras in the first seven overs.
The first five overs of spin, bowled by Zampa and Glenn Maxwell, conceded only 12 runs as Australia put the brakes on Afghanistan's solid beginning.
Afghanistan's ODI method under coach Jonathan Trott has been formulaic with no frills attached: bat first, take time in the Powerplay, keep wickets in hand for the final 10 overs.
It worked for them on Wednesday against England, and it almost worked for them against Australia in the 2023 World Cup, had it not been for Glenn Maxwell's innings of a lifetime.
Everything seemed in place for them again as they reached 3-159 in the 32nd over, but wickets fell at regular intervals to stunt the Afghan momentum.
With the rest of the top order falling around him, Afghanistan needed Atal to go large in the same vain that Zadran managed against England.
It was a shaky start for the new Afghan No.3, playing and missing a whopping 14 times in the Powerplay alone.
But he found his groove against the spinners, hitting some crisp sixes off Adam Zampa and Glenn Maxwell.
Just as a century was there for the taking however, Atal's concentration faltered, chipping a simple catch to Smith at cover from a good length Johnson delivery.
He fell for 85, triggering a collapse of 4-40 just as his side should have been launching.
Wicketkeeper Josh Inglis took a really sharp catch off Maxwell to dismiss Rahmat Shah and would later so his quick thinking with the run out of Mohammad Nabi.
As Inglis fumbled a wide Johnson delivery to his left, Nabi considered stealing an extra run. But, a quick retrieval and release from the keeper to Johnson, who had continued his follow through to the striker's end stumps, ended the veteran Nabi's innings unnecessarily early.
Australia's results at past three Champions Trophy tournaments:
2013
Lost to England by 48 runs
Match abandoned v New Zealand
Lost to Sri Lanka by 20 runs
2017
No result v New Zealand due to rain
No result v Bangladesh due to rain
Lost to England by 40 runs (DLS method)
2025
Defeated England by five wickets
Match abandoned v South Africa
No result v Afghanistan due to rain
Maxwell (1-28) and Short (0-21) were excellent as containment bowlers, sending down a combined 13 overs and conceding only 49 runs.
Zampa didn't have his best night, finishing with 2-48 from eight overs, but he took two top-order wickets which included ending the agonising innings of Afghan skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi for 20 off 49 balls.
It took 16 overs of toil but Nathan Ellis finally had his first Champions Trophy wicket with the wicket of Gulbadin.
An explosive finish to the innings from Azmatullah (67 off 63), which included five big sixes, lifted Afghanistan's total to 273.
Left-armer Ben Dwarshuis took the final three wickets of the innings to finish with 3-47.
Short appeared to injure his quad in the final handful of overs of the innings, moved to short third man by captain Smith in the final over in an effect to keep him out of the action. Cooper Connolly is Australia's travelling reserve.
Afghanistan need to now hope the eliminated England, to be led by Jos Buttler for the final time, can defeat South Africa by a large enough margin (roughly 200 runs) that the Proteas' net run rat falls below Afghanistan's.
2025 ICC men's Champions Trophy standings
Round 1
Group A
| Team | M | W | L | T | N/R | NRR | Ded. | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1
IND
|
3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.715 | 0 | 6 |
|
2
NZ
|
3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.267 | 0 | 4 |
|
3
BAN
|
3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | -0.443 | 0 | 1 |
|
4
PAK
|
3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | -1.087 | 0 | 1 |
M: Matches played
W: Wins
L: Losses
T: Ties
N/R: No results
NRR: Net Run Rate
Ded.: Deductions
PTS: Total points
Group B
| Team | M | W | L | T | N/R | NRR | Ded. | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1
SA
|
3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2.395 | 0 | 5 |
|
2
AUS
|
3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.475 | 0 | 4 |
|
3
AFG
|
3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -0.99 | 0 | 3 |
|
4
ENG
|
3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1.159 | 0 | 0 |
M: Matches played
W: Wins
L: Losses
T: Ties
N/R: No results
NRR: Net Run Rate
Ded.: Deductions
PTS: Total points
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Australia's Group B fixtures
February 22: beat England by five wickets (15 balls remaining)
February 25: match abandoned v South Africa
February 28: no result v Afghanistan
March 4: Semi-final 1, Dubai (8pm AEDT)
March 5: Semi-final 2, Lahore (8pm AEDT)
March 9: Final, Lahore or Dubai (8pm AEDT)
Australia squad: Steve Smith (c), Sean Abbott, Alex Carey, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Spencer Johnson, Aaron Hardie, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Adam Zampa. Travelling reserve: Cooper Connolly