Afghanistan defeated South Africa by 28 runsImage Credit source: Getty Images
Only a day had passed since the start of the Under-19 World Cup 2026 in Zimbabwe and Namibia, the first major shocking result was seen in the tournament. Former champion South Africa had to face a crushing defeat on the second day of the tournament. In the Group D match, Afghanistan surprised everyone by defeating South Africa by 28 runs and made a strong start to their campaign. Batting first in this match, Afghanistan had scored 266 runs but the South African team collapsed even before this score. Even the African team could not play the full 50 overs.
This sixth match of the World Cup was played on Friday 16 January in Windhoek, Namibia. In this, Afghanistan batted first and made a strong score of 266 runs after losing 8 wickets. After losing the first wicket early, Khalid Ahmedzai and Faisal Shinzada made an excellent partnership of 152 runs. During this, both of them completed half-centuries but were out before the century. Both the batsmen returned to the pavilion within just 4 balls. After this, Uzairullah Niazai played a quick inning of 51 runs in 51 balls and took the team to a good score.
South Africa had a bad start and the team lost 3 wickets for only 49 runs. Out of these, only 2 were run out which proved to be South Africa’s biggest weakness in this match. Four out of 10 wickets of the team fell due to runout, including captain Muhammad Bulbulia and top scorer Jason Rowles with 98 runs. While South Africa’s wickets were falling continuously, Rowles was holding the innings and was rapidly moving towards a century. But he was run out in the 41st over and then the South African innings disintegrated from here. Ultimately the entire team collapsed for 238 runs in 47.4 overs.
If we talk about other matches played on Friday, there were not many surprising results. In Group C, England, despite scoring only 210 runs, bowled out Pakistan for 173 runs and won by 37 runs. In the Group A match, defending champion Australia registered an easy victory against Ireland by 8 wickets. After restricting Ireland to just 235 runs, Australia achieved the target within 40 overs with the help of a strong century by Steven Hogan (115) and made a strong start to the journey of defending the title.