England seal comfortable win over Afghanistan after Eoin Morgan heroics
Follow live coverage of the game from Old Trafford
England faced Afghanistan in the Cricket World Cup at Old Trafford on Tuesday.
England are finally hitting form at this tournament with Friday's eight-wicket win over the West Indies coming fresh from a thrashing of Bangladesh early last week. And they continued their fine run with Eoin Morgan the star of the show with a record-breaking hundred in a comfortable win over the tournament minnows.
Here's how it played out.
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50.0 - Afghanistan 247/8, I Alikhil 3, Dawlat Zadran 0, J Archer 3/52 (10)
Archer hits Alikhil on the badge of the helmet to complete a maiden final over, and that's all she wrote.
Afghanistan see out the 50 overs for the first time in the tournament, and make their best World Cup score!
A very comprehensive victory for England in the end, and plenty of positives to take from a game that played out as the mismatch it looked on paper, banana skin very much avoided. Eoin Morgan played one of the great World Cup innings, Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root showed their skills at the top of the order and a complete bowling effort built on the pace of Mark Wood and Jofra Archer was too much for Afghanistan.
Afghanistan will be pleased with their efforts, though, seeing out the 50 overs with the bat. Hashmatulah was the standout with a gritty 76 while there were also runs for Rahmat Shah, Gulbadin Naib and Asghar Afghan around him. A batting base from which to build.
The bowling is of more concern, but England have taken apart attacks more complete than that of the Afghans time and again in the last four years. Sometimes there is little you can do to stop them, though Gulbadin might have liked the extra pace of Hamid Hassan in hindsight.
Eoin Morgan is the Man of the Match.
"The wicket was very good. Our openers started really well, Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root built a partnership and then from there we were able to take a bit of a gamble and it came off.
"I didn't think at any stage it was going to be my day. I'm getting old and I'm rolling around with a bad back.
"It started out as a tough game. On the big stage, it's nice to do it."
A record-breaking World Cup game: 33 sixes, 25 from England, 17 from Morgan, almost every one from the middle of his bat. Obnoxious ball-striking.
That's all from us here today. It started slowly, exploded as England accelerated in quite magnificent fashion and then drifted towards an inevitable conclusion, but there was intrigue throughout the Afghanistan innings and another reminder that in Wood and Archer England have two bowlers not afraid to knock your head off.
You can read Chris Stocks' report from a remarkable day of hitting at Old Trafford right here, but for now, I've been Harry Latham-Coyle for The Independent - thank you for joining me.
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