New Zealand have dug themselves a deep hole at the Twenty20 World Cup, failing to fire a shot, as they succumbed to Afghanistan by 84 runs in their tournament opener at Guyana.
The Kiwis paid a dear price for not scheduling any build-up matches before facing a team that had already played themselves into form against Uganda a few days earlier.
In particular, speedster Fazalhaq Farooqi had established himself as the pre-eminent bowler with a five-wicket bag against the African qualifiers and simply continued that momentum against the Kiwis.
Winning the toss, Blackcaps skipper Kane Williamson immediately put his opponents into bat and the Afghan openers plodded to 55/0 over the opening 10 overs, before finding another gear over the closing stretch. Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran put on 103 runs for the first wicket, before the latter fell in the 15th over for 44.
Rahmanullah would become the fifth wicket to fall in an eventful final over, bowled by Trent Boult, for 80 off 56 balls, after steering his side to 159/6. After their slow start, Afghanistan clubbed 104 runs off the last 10 overs to set a niggly target in dewy conditions, helped by uncustomary poor Blackcaps fielding.
The NZ batters were never in the hunt. Openers Finn Allen and Devon Conway took guard with very little meaningful cricket in recent months - Conway was returning from a three month injury break - and neither lasted long.
In fact, Allen was undone first ball by Fazalhaq, who took out leg stump with late inswing. Conway fended a catch to midwicket in Fazalhaq's second over, while Daryl Mitchel feathered an edge to Rahmanullah behind the wicket in his third.
Williamson provided a regulation slip catch off counterpart Rashid Khan, who then bowled Mark Chapman and trapped Michael Bracewell in front of the stumps off consecutive balls.
Glen Phillips reached double figures - a rarity in the Blackcaps innings - but was caught by Rashid on the boundary, off Mohammad Nabi. When Mitch Santner was clean-bowled by Nabi, New Zealand were still more than 100 runs behind, with just two wickets in hand.
Incredibly, the only six of the NZ innings came off the bat of bowler Matt Henry in the 14th over, but by then, the result was a foregone conclusion.
The size of the defeat - Afghanistan's first-ever T20 win over New Zealand - will also not help the Kiwis in any countback situation that may arise over the next couple of weeks.
"They simply outplayed us in all facets of the game and to get a total like that on a fiddly surface, they kept wickets in hand and played it beautifully," reflected Williamson. "From our perspective, it simply wasn't good enough in terms of starting a tournament, very frustrating.
"It's a quick turnaround for us now, and we have to regroup quickly and move onto our next challenge.
"It certainly wasn't our best performance - far from it, actually."
The Blackcaps will next face hosts West Indies, who will fancy their chances on home pitches. Another loss would effectively end the Kiwis' hopes of progressing out of the group stage.
Afghanistan 159/6 (Gurbaz 80, Zadran 44; Boult 2/22, Henry 2/37) NZ 75 (Phillips 18; Farooqi 4/17, Rashin 4/17)
Afghanistan win by 84 runs
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