Among the many things that made headlines in Afghanistan's victory over Bangladesh in the T20 World Cup, which helped them book a historic semifinal spot for themselves, was all-rounder Gulbadin Naib's apparent hamstring injury. Naib was seen going down clutching his hamstring while fielding at slips during the 12th over with Bangladesh's score 81/7. The covers had to be brought on shortly thereafter, with rain coming in. As it stood at the time, Afghanistan were winning the game based on the DLS par score and going through to the semifinals.

Footage was shown moments later of head coach and former England batter Jonathan Trott signalling to the players to slow things down as Bangladesh were behind on the DLS par score. Gulbadin went down rather dramatically, even seemingly responding to Trott with one hand and then going down the very next instance. The rain break lasted only a few minutes and, as it turned out, Gulbadin was perfectly fit on resumption, even bowling two overs and taking a wicket.

The commentary box exploded in laughter on seeing the replays of Gulbadin's dramatic fall and former New Zealand wicketkeeper Ian Smith referred to the apparent injury when Naib picked the wicket. "I've had a dodgy knee for the last six months. I am gonna see Gulbadin Naib's doctor straight after the game. He's the 8th wonder of the world right now," he said. Former Australia wicketkeeper reacted to Smith's comment with a laughing emoji on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Afghanistan's watershed moment

It all contributed to a memorable moment for Afghanistan cricket as they sealed a spot for themselves in the semifinal of a T20 World Cup in history. In doing so, they knocked out one of the tournament favourites in Australia, who were looking to do a unique treble of holding the World Test Championship, ODI and T20I World Cup titles at the same time.

Naib was one of the stars of the night for Afghanistan when they beat Australia in their previous Super Eight fixture which eventually led to them making it to the semifinals. Afghanistan could only manage a score of 148/6 batting first at Arnos Vale. Naib was then top wicket-taker for his side, recording figuresof 4/20 as Australia were all out for 127 and Afghanistan won by 21 runs. Australia went on to lose to India by 24 runs in their final Super Eight game which left them on the brink of a knockout, needing Bangladesh to beat Afghanistan later in the day.

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