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Afghans Make History

In the second match Ireland beat the Netherlands by 65 runs

It was a do-or-die match for both the teams and Afghanistan rose to the occasion to reach the final.

Chasing a target of 101, Afghanistan started in cautious manner and lost two early wickets. UAE introduced spin early in the form of Shahdeep Silva and the move worked. Silva bowled Karim Sadiq and Mohammed Shahzad to leave Afghanistan stranded at 2/16. Now captain Nawroz Mangal joined Noor Ali in the middle.

Both the players batted sensibly to repair the damage and were successful in their plans. They put on 32 runs for the third wicket to put Afghanistan on path to victory.

Mangal, who has learnt playing cricket in Pakistan, is key player in the Afghan team and is respected by the entire team.

The UAE got rid of the captain to raise some hope of a comeback. Afghanistan reached the 50-run mark in the 12^th over.

Asghar Stanikzai joined Noor in the middle and hit a couple of sixes to the delight of a partisan crowd. Asghar missed the earlier matches but proved his worth by playing some wonderful shots to make it easy for Afghanistan.

Asghar departed after playing an entertaining innings of 24, including two sixes and one four. When Afghanistan needed 13 runs from 14 balls, Samiullah Shinwari and Noor Ali took Afghanistan to victory with three balls to spare.

Man-of-the Match Noor scored an unbeaten 38 to secure the victory.

Rais Amedzai said: “We followed the instructions from the coach and played according to the situation. It is the best day in my career and we are ready to climb further heights in cricket. This victory will go a long way in Afghanistan’s cricket history.”

UAE coach Colin Wells said: “It is difficult to use cliches but the boys are devastated as you can imagine. We fell at the last two hurdles.

“We had two bad starts with the bat in both the crucial games and we did not field well.

“It is a pretty confident bunch but on these two occasions they failed to fire.”

Earlier, UAE won the toss and elected to bat but Khurram Khan’s decision backfired as they lost Mohammed Aqbal and Arfan Haider very cheaply.

Khan’s stay at the wicket was also short as the captain departed after scoring a single off three balls. The hosts were 11/3 in three overs.

The energetic Afghans looked determined to book the ticket for West Indies and their body language was positive and they were so dominant that UAE hit only one four in the first five overs. Saqib and Reman brought some sanity to the UAE innings by putting some runs on the board for the fourth wicket.

UAE reached the 50-run mark in the 11^th over.

As Afghanistan coach said on Friday, after losing the game against the Netherlands, it was a wake-up call for the one of the fast-emerging teams in the world of cricket. It was a different Afghan team on Saturday.

The crowd brought the stadium to life with their chants as they were celebrating every moment of the match with Afghanistan right on the top from the word go.

Mohammed Nabi, a star performer for Afghanistan in the tournament, struck in his second over by winning an LBW decision against Rehman who scored 16 off 20 balls, including 
one four. Nabi did it again by removing the dangerous Saqib to make it 56/5. Saqib made 24 after facing 33 balls and he hit two fours. Though the all-rounder was not happy with the LBW decision against him, but it looked all over for UAE in the 13^th over.

Nabi cleand up Fayyaz Ahmed in 17^th over to leave the UAE tottering at 78/5.

Hamid Hassan joined the party by shattering Shahdeep Silva wickets. Qadar Nawaz departed after scoring only four runs.

Nothing went in favour of the UAE as Hamid bowled Naeemuddin who scored 18 off 24 balls. UAE reached exact 100 in 20 overs and it proved that they were at least 20-30 runs short.

liaqat@khaleejtimes.com