Cricket fans think Afghanistan's Gulbadin Naib 'deserves an Oscar' for T20 World Cup antics

Cricket fans have said Afghanistan allrounder Gulbadin Naib 'should get an Oscar' for his antics in their historic win over Bangladesh in the 2024 T20 World Cup.

Afghanistan beat Bangladesh by eight runs on Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) method to qualify for the semi-finals of a World Cup for the first time in their history, knocking out Australia and Bangladesh in Group A of the Super Eights stage in the process.

But there's one moment that's been described as "the funniest thing ever" that's got a lot people talking.

Afghanistan posted 115/5 from their 20 overs and with rain falling, Bangladesh had fallen behind the DLS target in the 12th over at 81/7.

The DLS method is used to calculate what a team needs to score to win the game if rain means no more play is possible, or it produces a revised target in a reduced amount of overs taking the other team's score and a number of other factors into account.

There is a DLS target score that's updated after each ball - that means if the team chasing the total to win is ahead of this score if rain stops play and the game can't be resumed, they will win the match, or they will lose if they're behind the target.

Afghanistan needed to beat Bangladesh to qualify for the semi-finals.

During the 12th over, Naib's coach and former England star Jonathan Trott gestured from the boundary for his players to slow the game down as rain had started falling and he was hoping the umpires would take the players off the pitch as Afghanistan would win if there was no more play.

Seemingly seeing this instruction, Naib took matters into his own hands and dramatically went down with what was claimed to be cramp just before a ball was about to be bowled, much to the amusement of the broadcasters.

Social media users thought it was hilarious too and a number said Naib should get an "Oscar" for his performance.

Naib was helped off the pitch as the rain covers duly came on but even some of his own teammates didn't like his apparent delay tactics.

The rain was brief as play was able to resume with Bangladesh needing a revised 114 off 19 overs to win but they fell short, being bowled out for 105 towards the end of the 18th over.

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