LONDON – England captain Eoin Morgan set a new world record for most sixesin a one-day international innings as the World Cup hosts piled up 397 forsix in against Afghanistan on Tuesday.
Morgan hit 17 sixes in his career-best 148, with England’s total of 25sixes also a new world record.
Morgan, dropped on 28, dominated a third-wicket stand of 189 with Joe Root(82), whose contribution to their partnership was a mere 33.
Afghanistan star leg-spinner Rashid Khan set an unwanted record with 0-110in nine overs — the most expensive return at a World Cup and secondcostliest in all ODI cricket.
Morgan’s tally surpassed the record of 16 sixes in an ODI inningspreviously shared by India’s Rohit Sharma, South Africa’s AB de Villiersand West Indies’ Chris Gayle.
But one ball after launching Gulbadin Naib for the record-breaking six,Morgan holed out off the Afghanistan captain to end a 71-ball innings thatalso featured four fours.
His innings, which featured 118 runs in boundaries, was all the moreimpressive as Morgan had been doubtful for this match with a back spasmsuffered in England’s eight-wicket win over the West Indies, in which hecould not bat.
Jonny Bairstow (90) got England off to a solid start after Morgan won thetoss, with the home side accelerating after James Vince fell for 26 when hemishooked paceman Dawlat Zadran to short fine-leg.
Rank outsiders Afghanistan, yet to win a game at this tournament, did nothelp themselves with some woeful outfielding.
Bairstow was untroubled until, and in sight of his eighth ODI century, hechipped a return catch to Naib.
A visibly annoyed Bairstow walked off having been in command during a99-ball innings that featured eight fours and three sixes.
Morgan settled in quickly, hitting Naib for two sixes including a fine hitover long-on.
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But the left-hander should have been out when he skied Rashid Khan only forDawlat Zadran at deep midwicket to make such a mess of the catch that theball bounced out of his hands and over the rope for four.
It was a costly error, with Morgan immediately hitting a soaring six. Hecleared the boundary again in a 36th over that cost 18 runs.
Morgan then went to fifty with his fifth six in 36 balls faced when hepulled off-spinner Mohammad Nabi high into an 8,000-capacity temporarystand.
Root was denied a second successive hundred and third of the tournamentwhen he holed out off Gulbadin, whose three for 68 was not a bad return inthe circumstances.
But the sixes kept coming, with Moeen Ali setting a new team record when helaunched the penultimate delivery of the innings, from Dawlat, over long-on.Line-ups:
*England:* Jonny Bairstow, James Vince, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan (capt), BenStokes, Jos Buttler (wkt), Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, JofraArcher, Mark Wood
*Afghanistan:* Noor Ali Zadran, Gulbadin Naib (capt), Rahmat Shah,Hashmatullah Shahidi, Asghar Afghan, Mohammad Nabi, Najibullah Zadran,Ikram Alikhil (wkt), Rashid Khan, Dawlat Zadran, Mujeeb Ur Rahman
*Umpires:* Paul Reiffel (AUS), Joel Wilson (WIS)
*TV umpire:* Marais Erasmus (RSA)
*Match referee:* Ranjan Madugalle (SRI) – APP/AFP
