Afghanistan vs Bangladesh Match Summary
The yet another exciting match of the Asia Cup 2022 comes to an end and it is the Afghanistan side again who won the match and have confirmed their berth in the semis by topping the group. In the game between Afghanistan and Bangladesh, the Afghan side won the match by 7 wickets with 9 balls remaining. Here in this article, we talk about Afghanistan vs Bangladesh Match Summary in detail.
The game between the two teams was a typical display of T20 cricket. At UAE where spinners are expected to steal the game, we saw the same thing happening today. Afghanistan who bowled first, restricted Bangladesh for small total of 127 for 7 in the first innings. The bowlers had a magical day yet again and we saw the highlights of their first match in this game too.
Chasing a small target of 128, Afghanistan may have lost their 3 wickets for 62 runs but the partnership for fourth wicket ensured that the team did not have anything to worry about and the ship will sail across the sea easily.
The Zabran brothers, Ibrahim and Najibullah played crucial innings, where both scored 40+ score. Najibullah looked quite in hurry as he hit 43 off just 17 balls at the strike rate of 253. It was a 69-run partnership off only 36 deliveries after Bangladesh appeared to have rallied to take the lead in the game. The Afghan bowlers had earlier done well to choke the Bangladeshi hitters for significant portions of their innings, making for a flawless all-around effort. After enduring some difficult bowling from Bangladesh’s spinners with the bat, they turned to the seamers to increase their scoring pace and secure the victory.
For Bangladesh, captain Shakib looked a little difficult to hit as he ended the day bowling 4 overs and giving just 13 runs for 1 wicket. Other bowling who took 1 wicket each were Hossain and Saifuddin. The team give fighting competition but they looked dwarfs when Najibullah came in middle to shoot and hit everything all around.
During the post match presentation, the losing captain Shakib Al Hasan talked about the match, as he said, “Yes it was always tough when you lose four wickets in the first 7,8 overs. But I thought the bowlers bowled exceptionally well to get us back into the game. Credit to Afghanistan though they played really well. We know that Najibullah is a dangerous player. On a wicket like this we thought we had the game, but credit to how they batted.”
The winning captain Mohammad Nabi talked about the win and credited the players as he said, “Everyone knows Rashid and Mujeeb are world class spinners, that’s why we were in the game in the first 10 overs. We were ahead of the game cos we got early wickets. Everyone knows we have power hitters in the death. That’s we made sure not to lose early wickets, so that our power hitters could finish the game.”
PLAYER OF THE MATCH – Mujeeb Ur Rahman (3/16)
