New Zealand opened its account in the tournament with a win.Image Credit source: PTI

In the fourth match of the ICC T20 World Cup 2026, New Zealand opened its account in the tournament with an easy victory. In this Group D match played at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, New Zealand defeated Afghanistan by 5 wickets on the basis of Tim Seifert's half-century. Afghanistan was considered a contender for victory on the spin-friendly pitch of Chennai and initially seemed to be ahead in the match, but New Zealand's batsmen displayed a fighting spirit and achieved the target of 183 runs with 13 balls to spare. With this, New Zealand also took revenge for the defeat in the 2024 World Cup.

Exactly 610 days ago, on June 8, 2024, in a T20 World Cup match Afghanistan defeated New Zealand Was out for just 75 runs. In that match also, the power of Afghan spinners was seen and the team registered a surprising victory by a huge margin of 84 runs. In such a situation, a similar performance was expected on the Chennai pitch also. Especially after seeing the Kiwi batsmen struggling against the spinners in the recent T20 series against India, Afghanistan was also proving to be a difficult challenge for them.

New Zealand's batting including Seifert shined

This was also seen happening in the beginning of New Zealand's innings. In response to the target of 183 runs required to win, New Zealand lost 2 wickets in the second over itself. Spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman (2/31) had sent back openers Finn Allen and Rachin Ravindra on consecutive balls. But after this, Tim Seifert and Glenn Phillips (42) made a strong partnership and quickly added 74 runs. However, their target was only the pacers and it was here that Rashid Khan took the wicket of Phillips.

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But Seifert (65) kept the lead from the other side and completed an excellent half-century. During this time, he also got the support of Mark Chapman, who himself scored a quick 28 runs. When both of them were out, New Zealand needed only 28 runs in 26 balls. Darryl Mitchell (25) and captain Mitchell Santner (17) scored these runs in the next 13 balls and led the team to victory in just 17.5 overs.

Gulbadin's explosive half-century

Earlier, Afghanistan showed its strength in batting and the reason for this was experienced all-rounder Gulbadin Naib. The start of the team was not special and both the openers returned to the pavilion after only 44 runs in the powerplay. Both were dismissed by Lockie Ferguson in the same over. But after this there was a partnership of about 80 runs between Gulbadin and Sediqullah Atal (29). Gulbadin scored a quick 63 runs in just 35 balls. In the last overs, Mohammad Nabi (10), Darwish Rasooli (20) and Azmatullah Omarzai (14) scored runs quickly and took the team to a strong score of 182 runs.