ABU DHABI: Super 12s – Afghanistan gives a winning send off to their national cricket hero, Asghar Afghan, former Afghanistan cricket captain who had announced earlier his retirement from all forms of cricket. It was an emotional send off to Afghan who has been a captain in 52 T20Is and led Afghanistan to 42 wins to make him the most successful captain (highest number of wins as captain) in T20s ahead of MS Dhoni, who won 41 of the 72 matches he has led. In addition to T20Is, Afghan has represented Afghanistan in 114 ODIs and 6 Tests.
Earlier today, Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi won the toss and opted to bat first openers Hazratullah Zazai (33 runs off 27 balls) and Mohamed Shahzad (45 runs off 33 balls) batted brilliantly in the Powerplay for Afghanistan, scoring their 50-run partnership inside the first six overs.
However, the Namibia Eagles did pull back on the Afghanistan run rate with few wickets. Asghar Afghan playing his last match, contributed in the middle order with a quick fire 31 runs off 23 balls. Mohamed Nabi accelerated at the end to see Afghanistan reach 160 runs with a power hitting cameo of 32 runs off 17 balls. Afghanistan set a total of 160 runs for the fall of 5 wickets (20 overs). Nicol Loftie-Eaton was the pick of the Namibia bowling with 2 for 21 runs.
Chasing the Afghanistan total , Namibia only managed 98 runs for 9 wickets in the allotted 20 overs. Other than David Wiese who scored 26 runs all other Namibian batsmen scored a total of only 66 runs. Naveen Ul Haq was aggressive in his bowling and picked up 3 wickets for 26 runs off 4 overs. He was also named the player of the match for his outstanding bowling display. Hamid Hassan also bowled well to clear the middle and tail with a haul of 3 wickets for only 9 runs. Rashid Khan bowled economically giving away only 14 runs in 4 overs (1 wicket). Afghanistan won by 62 runs by restricting Namibia to 98 runs.
Afghanistan stands at the 2nd position in the Group 2 points table with 4 points. Pakistan leads the points table with 6 points. (RZ)
[Image credit icc-cricket.com]
