World Cup has got it’s own charm of glorious uncertainties. Underdogs were at their best again after trouncing England in Delhi. The long awaited dream of Afghanistan to beat Pakistan at the biggest stage has finally been clinically accomplished on Monday.
Pakistan made a steady start in spite of Azmat’s breakthrough
After being sent into bowl after losing the toss, Afghanistan started the proceedings with Naveen and Mujeeb from both ends. Mujeeb was not upto his efficient best as he went for about seven an over in the power play. He bowled fast and regularly gave room to the batters to score free runs. He couldn’t settle into any sort of rhythm. Azmat came off as the first change and struck immediately in his second over by forcing Imam to mistime a pull straight into the hands of Naveen positioned at mid-on.
Noor Ahmad provided a double blow
In spite of the breakthrough, Babar and Abdullah went on to rebuild the innings with another fifty plus partnership. Nabi and Rashid were operating from either ends but none of them were able to dislodge the inform pair. Finally Noor Ahmad was introduced and it paid dividends. At first Abdullah was found wanting before the stumps when he failed to connect a sweep. Soon after that Rizwan also mistimed a sweep and fell into the hands of Mujeeb standing at short fine leg. This was a dream world cup debut for Noor who by then was brimming with confidence. His tail was up and was trying too much to get his third. In the process lost intermittent control and conceded few extras in the form of wides. Nabi on the other hand was keeping things extremely tight from one end. Both Shakeel and Babar could not enforce free strokes against his immaculate discipline. Saud finally gave a fairly easy catch to Rashid while trying to force the pace.
Iftikhar and Shadab took Pakistan over 280
Babar was still standing tall as a thorn and accumulated runs at a fair pace with Shadab who was giving him good company. Finally Azam fell to Noor while trying to up the ante at the individual score of 74. Noor ended up with impressive figures of 3/49 in 10 overs. Shadab then found an ally in Iftekhar who consolidated for sometime before opening his arms against Naveen and Azmat in the slog overs. Pakistan got too many in the last five and Azmat in my opinion bowled one too many in the last five. Haq dismissed both the set batters in the 50th over to put some brakes at the end. His variations have been impressive so far and looks to be a settled death bowling option for Afghanistan.
Ibrahim and Gurbaz mixed caution with aggression
With 283 to chase against a formidable pace attack, Ibrahim was very positive from the onset. It seemed as if he was waiting for this battle from ages. Right from the first ball, he was meeting the ball crisply and finding the gaps. Running between the wickets with Gurbaz was electrifying to say the least. They didn’t miss any opportunity to steal extra runs whenever it was offered. Ibrahim was quickly off to a flier. It gave Gurbaz the time to steady his nerves and settle down nicely into his own groove. He was particularly severe against Haris Rauf in the 8th over where he smacked him for four boundaries. The cricketing fraternity of the world was witnessing something special from the boys in blue.
The duo produced another 100 run partnership
The duo crossed the hundred run mark in the 16th over with both batters crossing their respective half centuries. Meanwhile Ibrahim Zadran became the fastest Afghan to cross one thousand ODI runs in just 24 innings. In the process both of them forged their second hundred run partnership in this world cup. Both of them were going great guns until Shaheen broke the shackles straight away when he came back to deliver his second spell. Gurbaz tried to pull an angling short ball towards the cow corner only to top edge that into the cups of a diving third man. However, by then, an opening partnership of 130 runs had already been crafted at a run rate of just above six.
Ibrahim fell after engineering match winning 87
Rahmat Shah joined Ibrahim & they both slowly started to reap the momentum provided by Gurbaz at the beginning. In spite of facing numerous cramps, Ibrahim kept himself going by rotating the strike with Rahmat until nicking Hassan Ali to the keeper when the scoreboard read 190. Although Ibrahim got dismissed for 87 but by then a great platform was set before the boys.
Rahmat and Hashmat steered Afghanistan home
Pakistan had smelled a sniff of a chance but Shah and Shahidi kept their cool and looked to build an association again with occasional boundaries and a few sixes. Babar and his boys were getting restless as they could foresee the outcome. Eventually in the process, Rahmat Shah brought up his 24th fifty in ODI cricket. With a bit of luck Hashmat also stuck around with Rahmat to stitch an unbeaten partnership of 96 runs to drive Afghanistan past the target with an over to spare. This must have happened very rare that all top four Afghanistan batters scored brilliant knocks together to clinically chase down a very stiff target. After seven successive ODI losses against Pakistan in the last 10-11 years, Afghanistan finally proved their mettle. I reckon this victory should be able to calm the nerves down when the boys will face bigger oppositions in the future of this world cup and beyond.