ICC T20: Pakistan win third game in a row

Pakistan’s dominance in this tournament is remarkable.

Today, they won their third match of the T20 World Cup.

It was a resounding victory as they beat Afghanistan by 5 wickets in an intense game.

Asif Ali’s 4 sixes in an over off Karim Jannat brought this victory to Pakistan.

He was awarded by the player of the match for his outstanding performance today.

With this win, Pakistan is all poised for the semi-finals. 

Afghanistan surprisingly opted to bat today which didn’t work out very well.

Afghanistan lost their 4 important wickets within the powerplay.

Hazartullah Zazai (0), Mohammad Shazad (8), Rahmanulllah Gurbaz (10), and Asghar Afghan (10) were all sent to the pavilion early by Pakistan’s bowlers. 

Karim Janat (15) tried to advance the scoring rate but was sent back to the hut by Imad Wasim.

At 64, Afghanistan had lost 5 wickets.

The Afghans were in big trouble and they needed someone to stand up and build the partnership, but wickets kept falling at regular intervals.

After losing Najibullah Zardran (21) on 74 runs, captain Mohammad Nabi (35) and Gulabdin Naib (35) built a partnership of 76 runs.

Thanks to this, Afghanistan posted a total of 147 on 6 wickets within 20 over.

Rizwan falls early 

Pakistan also lost their first wicket early as Mohammad Rizwan (8) was dismissed by Mujeeb within powerplay.

Babar Azam (56) and Fakhar Zaman (30) made a partnership of 65 runs for the 3rd wicket.

Thus, Babar Azam scored his 2nd half-century of the tournament. 

Mohammad Nabi broke this partnership by picking up Fakhar Zaman’s wicket.

After losing Zaman Pakistan struggled a lot to build another partnership.  

Next, Pakistan lost the wickets of Mohammad Hafeez (10) and Shoaib Malik (19).

The main blow was dealt by Rashid Khan who picked up Babar Azam’s wicket on 122.

Pakistan was in trouble at that stage but Asif Ali performed a miracle in the 18th over. 

Pakistan needed 24 on 12 balls and Md Nabi handed over the ball to Karim Janat.

Asif Ali smashed 4 sixes in an over off Janat and finished the match.

Asif Ali’s innings of 25 runs in just 7 balls came out of nowhere.

It seems like everything is going Pakistan’s way. 

Pakistan is at the top of the table in the group.

Pakistan will be facing Namibia on Nov 2 in their upcoming match but before them, Afghanistan will take on Namibia on 31st Oct.

Pakistan 148 for 5 (Babar 51, Asif 25*, Rashid 2-26) beat Afghanistan 147 for 6 (Naib 35*, Imad 2-25) by five wickets