Afghanistan’s cricketing journey has been one spent within the wilderness, with the aspect pressured to play all its worldwide matches away from residence on account of unrest in its homeland.
For a short whereas, in 2019, town of Lucknow acted as Afghanistan’s ‘home’, with the aspect taking up West Indies in an ODI collection and a solitary Test right here.
On Friday, Afghanistan celebrated its return to the City of Nawabs by outclassing the Netherlands by seven wickets within the ODI World Cup on the Ekana Stadium.
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For the third match working, the Afghans chased down a goal in scientific style as they moved to fifth within the factors desk to place themselves a end result or two away from reaching the World Cup semifinal.
Afghan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi led from the entrance along with his third fifty of the match. He placed on a 74-run partnership with Rahmat Shah, who dominated the stand with a stroke-filled half-century.
Rahmat swept and reverse-swept the Dutch spinners and drove with panache towards the pacers, lifting the Afghanistan chase, after it misplaced each its openers early on. Once the right-handed batter fell, Shahidi, together with Azmatullah Omarzai, marshalled Afghanistan to its fourth win of the match.
Shahidi, deservedly, hit the successful runs with a lofted shot to the deep mid-wicket fence, a lot to the enjoyment of the 20,000+ crowd which got here to welcome the Afghans again.
Afghanistan’s win although was nearly sealed lengthy earlier than, by the unrelenting efficiency it put up within the subject within the first innings.
The Netherlands, which elected to bat, was shaken early when Afghan’s PowerPlay specialist spinner Mujeeb ur Rahman trapped opener Wesley Baressi in entrance in the course of the first over.
But the Dutch recovered as they pushed on to finish the opening PowerPlay at 66 for one, their finest tally within the opening 10 overs this World Cup.
Opener Max O’Dowd was the driving power on this early surge, with the right-handed batter scoring some easy boundaries, whereas Colin Ackermann provided the requisite assist.
O’Dowd was significantly forceful towards Fazalhaq Farooqi, who was responsible of providing the Dutch batter an excessive amount of width whereas working across the wicket.
But the Netherlands’ hopes of capitalising on the early momentum have been shortly doused, due to some impressed Afghan fielding.
All-rounder Omarzai triggered the collapse by working out the free-flowing O’Dowd with a direct hit from superb leg. Ackermann too suffered the identical destiny, with crowd favorite Rashid Khan executing the throw this time.
The Netherlands misplaced additional floor, when skipper Scott Edwards ran down the monitor towards Mohammed Nabi, just for him to edge it to wicket-keeper Ikram Alikhil, who whipped off the bails.
Afghanistan’s ascendancy within the match grew, parallelly with the swelling of a crowd that cheered on the exploits of the Afghan aspect with vigour.
Nabi and the returning left-arm wrist spinner Noor Ahmad then tightened the screws with common wickets.
Sybrand Engelbrecht stored the struggle going for the Dutch aspect with a battling half-century. But he was quickly run out – the fourth Dutch batter to fall in that method – and the Netherlands shortly folded out for a below-par whole, which might quickly be surmounted by an environment friendly Afghan batting unit.
Source web site: sportstar.thehindu.com
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