Highlights
Pakistani fast bowlers wreaked havoc in Sri Lanka.
Pakistan won by 142 runs against Afghanistan.
New Delhi. The ODI series between Afghanistan and Pakistan (PAK vs AFG) has started in Sri Lanka. Pakistan captain Babar Azam won the toss and decided to bat first. Pakistan’s start in batting was very fragile. Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan could not even score 25 runs together. Pakistan’s batting may not have shown strength, but the pacer army of the team blew the test of the Afghan batsmen.
For Pakistan, Imam-ul-Haq understood his responsibility and played a valuable innings of 61 runs. After this, batsmen like Shadab Khan and Iftikhar Ahmed played important innings and took the team to a score of 201. The score may look small but it looked huge for the Pakistani bowlers. Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah sent more than half of the Afghanistan team to the pavilion within 50 runs. Shaheen Afridi broke Afghanistan’s back by taking two wickets in two consecutive balls. After this the rest of the bowlers also attacked the Afghan batsman like a hungry lion.
Haris Rauf wreaked havoc
Haris Rauf also wreaked havoc after Shaheen Afridi’s aggressive start. Seeing Harris, Rahmanullah dismissed 5 batsmen including Gurbaz. Apart from this, Naseem Shah and Shadab Khan got one wicket each. Due to this performance by the bowlers, the Afghanistan team was bundled out for just 59 runs. Pakistan has won this match by a huge margin of 142 runs.
Played magic on the spin pitch
The match was played in Sri Lanka, which is the second host country of Asia Cup 2023. Many experienced players found the spin attack effective on the pitches here. There was also some great spin bowling from Afghanistan. But the Pakistani fast bowlers satiated their hunger on this pitch and started the series with a win. The Indian team will have to prepare strongly against this aggressive bowling of Pakistan.
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Tags: Babar Azam, Haris Rauf, PAK vs AFG, Pakistan Cricket, Shaheen Afridi
First published: August 22, 2023, 21:28 IST