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We are just a week away from the Asia Cup 2023, which starts next week. Pakistan and Sri Lanka are jointly hosting this cricket tournament this time. As part of the preparation, Pakistan faced off against Afghanistan today at MRIC Stadium in Sri Lanka, where Pakistan humiliated the Afghans.
Bowlers from both sides have been very dominating today. It was a difficult battle for Pakistani batters, but Afghanistan’s batters could not even stand between the wickets. To chase the target of 202 runs, the Afghans were all out within 59 runs! Therefore, Pakistan won the first ODI of the three-match series against Afghanistan.
With this dominating victory, Pakistan give a strong message to all the participants in this tournament. They showed their bowling strength against Afghanistan. Pakistani bowlers, especially, pacers were on fire. Eight wickets of Afghanistan were taken by Pakistani bowlers, where Haris Rauf picked up five wickets alone.
As it happened
Babar Azam, the captain of Pakistan, won the toss and didn’t take much time to decide to bat first. Therefore, Fakhar Zaman and Imamul Haque came forward to start the batting innings for Pakistan.
But Pakistan, one of the hosts of Asia Cup 2023, failed to get a good start. They lost their first wicket in the very first over as Fazalhaq Farooqi picked up Fakhar Zaman in his fourth delivery of the opening over. Captain Babar Azam also failed to stay long on the crease. He had gone duck as Mujeeb Ur Rahman picked him up in the 2nd over.
However, opener Imamul Haq tried hard to fight back for Pakistan. With Rizwan, he made a partnership of 33 runs. But Rizwan departed the crease with 21 runs after being LBW by Mujeeb Ur Rahman. On the other hand, opener Imamul Haque fought for his life and scored the highest 61 runs for Pakistan.
Iftikhar Ahmed and Shadab Khan contributed also. Iftikhar added 30 runs, while Shadab Khan scored 39. Unfortunately, the remaining batters failed to score enough. Therefore, Pakistan became all-out in 201 runs.
Chasing down the target, the Afghan batters couldn’t stand between the wickets. Due to the aggression of Pakistani pacers, Afghanistani kept losing wickets continuously. Pacer Haris Rauf picked up five wickets alone for Pakistan, while Shaheen Afridi got two. Naseem Shah and Shadab Khan also picked up one wicket each. As a result, Afghanistan lost all their wickets in 59 runs.
Afghan skipper on defeat
Afghanistan’s captain Hashmatulla Shahidi explained why they tasted this kind of defeat. He said, “It was chaseable, we had a good chance, but their bowling didn’t allow us. Our shot selection wasn’t good enough, and it put pressure on us. Happy with our bowler’s performance and looking forward to the next game, we will try our best. Gotta be smart in our shot selection, and today we didn’t do that well.”
Score Card
Pakistan: 201/10
Afghanistan: 59/10
