Arnos Vale, June 25
Former West Indies star Dwayne Bravo has thanked the people of Afghanistan for acknowledging his contribution to their cricket team's historic march into the semifinals of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup here on Monday night by eight runs in a low-scoring thriller in the last Super Eight stage match at Arnos Vale Ground.
Bravo guided Afghanistan skipper Rashid Khan in set fielding for a short-pitched ball and advised the bowler Naveen-ul-Haq to take pace off his delivery with Bangladesh needing nine runs from eight balls. The slower delivery deceived Mustafizur Rahman and he stayed back in the crease to negotiate a short-pitched delivery and was trapped LBW.
The Afghanistan players also celebrated Bravo's contribution to their victory by performing the famous song Champion, penned and sung by the two-time World T20 winner Bravo in the dressing room after the match.
On Tuesday, Bravo posted a video clip of a huge crowd of Afghanistan fans chanting his name and thanked them for their love and support.
"Afghanistan, thank you for the endless love and support. This is what it means to the people of afgh (Afghanistan). Champions of Afghanistan, inshallah we got this!" said Bravo in a post on his Instagram handle.
The post accompanied a video in which a huge crowd in some unspecified place in Afghanistan was changing "DJ, DJ, DJ.." Bravo's initials and also his nickname in cricket circles.
Afghanistan will now take on South Africa in the first semifinal in their maiden entry into the last-four stage of any ICC event. In his post, Bravo hoped that the team would go all the way and become champions of the T20 World Cup.