Afghanistan has once again made a big upset. After defeating England, Afghanistan has defeated Pakistan by 8 wickets. Pakistan team was not seen even once in the match. Afghanistan has defeated Pakistan for the first time in the World Cup. Earlier, Afghanistan had to face defeat in seven out of seven matches.
Afghanistan defeated Pakistan by 8 wickets in the ICC World Cup match on Monday. Batting first, Pakistan scored 282 runs for 7 wickets. Afghanistan won by scoring 286 runs for two wickets in 49 overs. Former Team India cricketer Ajay Jadeja is the coach of this team and this victory shows how much women there is among the Indian cricketers.
Earlier, Babar, who had struggled to score runs in the last few matches, scored 74 runs in 92 balls which included four fours and a six. Shafiq played an innings of 58 runs on 75 balls while Shadab Khan (40 on 38 balls) and Iftikhar Ahmed (40 on 27 balls) made a useful partnership of 73 runs for the sixth wicket in the later overs. With this, Pakistan was successful in scoring 282 runs for seven wickets, but Afghanistan proved it to be dwarf.
Zadran and Gurbaz presented a good example of alertness and aggression from the beginning. By taking 10 runs in the first over of Pakistan’s leading bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi, he had indicated that he would not allow the bowlers to dominate. After this, when Haris Rauf came to bowl his first over, the batsmen scored 17 runs with the help of four fours. Afghanistan scored 60 runs without any loss in the first 10 overs.
Gurbaz completed his fourth half-century on 38 balls while Zadran had reached this milestone on 54 balls before him. Afridi gave the first success to Pakistan by dismissing Gurbaz in the 22nd over, but by then this opening pair had played the second highest partnership for Afghanistan in the World Cup. Gurbaz hit nine fours and one six in his innings.
Zadran added 60 runs for the second wicket with Rahmat Shah but he could not complete his fifth century in ODIs due to being caught behind the wicket by Hasan Ali. Zadran’s innings included 10 fours. Rahmat Shah completed his half-century on 58 balls and even after this, along with Shahidi, he did not give any chance to Pakistan’s bowlers and gave his team its third overall win in the World Cup.
Rahmat Shah hit five fours and two sixes in his innings while Shahidi hit four fours, including the winning four. Earlier, on a pitch suitable for slow bowlers, Afghanistan included four spinners in their playing eleven. Among these, left arm wrist spinner Noor Ahmed was the most successful. He took three wickets for 49 runs. Fast bowler Naveen Ul Haq took two wickets for 52 runs.
Off-spinner Mohammad Nabi (1 wicket for 31 runs) bowled economically while leading spinners Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Ur Rehman did not get any success. Pakistan won the toss and decided to bat first and scored 56 runs without any loss in 10 overs of the first powerplay. The contribution of Shafiq was important in this, who hit five fours and two sixes in his innings.
His opening partner Imam Ul Haq, however, could score only 17 runs and immediately after the powerplay, he was caught at midwicket on the first ball of medium pace bowler Azmat Umarzai (1 wicket for 50 runs in five overs). Babar and Shafiq also made a half-century partnership (52 runs) for the second wicket. Noor Ahmed took his first wicket by trapping Shafiq LBW.
After this, he gave important success to Afghanistan by getting Mohammad Rizwan (08), who was in excellent form, caught at short fine leg. When Babar was on his way to play a big innings, Noor Ahmed, the youngest player of the World Cup, tried to spoil Pakistan’s death overs strategy by getting him caught out in the covers. Meanwhile, Nabi did not allow Saud Shakeel (25) to take advantage of the good start.
However, Shadab and Iftikhar scored runs quickly in the last overs. Naveen Al Haq dismissed both of them in the last over of the innings. Iftikhar hit four sixes in his innings.