Pakistan avoided a whitewash after losing two consecutive matches in Sharjah, beating Afghanistan by 66 runs in the third and final Twenty20 match on Monday.
One of the highlights of the match played today was Pakistan captain Shadab Khan’s hundred wickets in the T20 format and his first win as a captain.
Today, Afghanistan won the toss and decided to field first, which looked like a good decision when Pakistan lost two wickets for just 28 runs in the fifth over.
After the early wickets fell, there were fears that Pakistan would perform badly today like the batting failure in the first two matches.
However, Saeem Ayub, Iftikhar Ahmed, Abdullah Shafiq and captain Shadab Khan played well and took the score to 182 for the loss of seven wickets in 20 overs.
Saim top-scored with 49, his 40-ball innings studded with four fours and two sixes.
Abdullah Shafiq scored 23 runs off 13 balls while Iftikhar Ahmed scored 31 runs off 25 balls. Shadab scored 28 runs off 17 balls by hitting five fours.
Among the Afghan bowlers, Mujeebur Rahman stood out with two wickets while Fazalul Haq Farooqui, Mohammad Nabi, Fareed Ahmed and Rashid Khan took one wicket each.
In Pakistan’s chase of 182 runs, the Afghan openers adopted an aggressive approach but their wickets kept falling at regular intervals.
Ehsanullah made the first crack in the Afghan wall by bowling Rahmanullah Garbaz (18 runs) in the fifth over.
In the sixth over, Mohammad Wasim Jr got the other opener Siddiqullah Atul (11 runs) lbw.
In the seventh over, Ibrahim Zardan also returned to the pavilion without adding anything to his team’s score. They were targeted by Shadab.
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After falling for three wickets at 39, the Afghan batting line could not put up much resistance against the Pakistani bowlers.
Afghanistan’s wickets continued to fall at regular intervals and the entire team collapsed for 116 runs in the 19th over.
The highlight of Pakistani bowling was captain Shadab’s three wickets. He also completed 100 wickets in T20 format today.
Apart from them, Ehsanullah also got three wickets while Wasim, Zaman Khan and Imad Wasim got one wicket each.
Shadab is currently Pakistan’s highest wicket-taker in the shortest format of cricket.
After him, the second number in the list is Shahid Afridi, who has taken 97 wickets in 98 matches.
Off-spinner Saeed Ajmal is third with 85 wickets, Umar Gul is fourth with the same number of wickets and Haris Rauf is fifth with 72 wickets.
