Afghanistan clean sweep Zimbabwe in T20 series

Noor Ahmed took his first five-wicket haul to help Afghanistan set up a seven-wicket victory against a hapless Zimbabwe in the third T20 match at the iconic Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

After skittling out Zimbabwe for a paltry score of 79 in 14.3 overs, Afghanistan made light work of the easy target as they crossed the line for the loss of three wickets with 11.5 overs remaining.

This is the second biggest victory in terms of balls remaining against a Full Member Nation.

Earlier the record was held by Pakistan, that too was against Zimbabwe. Pakistan had achieved the target with 87 balls to spare.

Noor tore apart Zimbabwe’s fragile batting line-up with a career best figure of 5-13 in just 3.3 overs. He wreaked havoc as Zimbabwean batters were seen dancing to the tune of the wily spinner.

So severe was Afghanistan’s attack that Zimbabwe did not hit a single six in the whole match.

Zimbabwe could not play even a full quota of overs and were dismissed for their lowest total against Afghanistan in T20Is. Before this their lowest total against Afghans was 90. This was Zimbabwe’s 18th loss in the last 20 matches.

With every match, Zimbabwe’s standard is touching a new nadir. Zimbabwe’s knack for getting off to a disastrous start continued in the third T20 as well. They were pushed on the back foot right from the beginning by Afghanistan bowlers.

It was pacer Fazalhaq Farooqi, who triggered the collapse. He got rid of opener Innocent Kaia with just eight runs on the board. Two balls later, Brian Bennet holed out to Afghanistan captain Ibrahim Zadran.

Zimbabwe had lost their second wicket without adding a single run to their score. Both the openers were back in the pavilion.

Their biggest problem has been their opening partnership. Despite playing a tri-series and three-match bilateral series on the current tour, they have not been able to find the right opening combination.

Their best opening partnership in the last five matches has been 39 runs in the second match of the current series. Their average of their opening partnership in the last five matches is just over 18.

Zimbabwe are experimenting too much with their opening combination. They have already tried three different sets of players for the opening slot but nothing seems to be working for them.

After the departure of both the openers, the onus of taking the innings forward came on the shoulders of captain Sikander Raza, who scored a brilliant century in the last match and kept the chase alive till the last over. But Raza failed to create the same magic.

Zimbabwe’s whole batting revolves around Raza. He is the mainstay of their batting line-up. Abdullah Tarakhail, who came into the fold for the first time, got rid of Raza to leave Zimbabwe in tatters.

With the top three batsmen back in the pavilion, Zimbabwe were in dire need of a big partnership to post a fighting total. Ryan Burl and Wessly Madhevere showed guts and tried to put up a resistance.

They added a valuable 43 runs for the fourth wicket to take the innings forward. When the duo was batting, Zimbabwe looked set for a score of 150 plus. It looked like they would stage a comeback like Afghanistan did in the last match. Despite losing four wickets for four runs, Afghanistan had posted a total of 221.

But Zimbabwe did not have anyone like Azmatullah Omarzai, who became the first batter in the world to score a century in a T20, batting at number six.

Ahmedzai broke the dangerous-looking partnership to give Afghanistan an important breakthrough before Noor sprang into action to wipe off the lower order.

Ahmedzai trapped Ryan in front of the wickets to reduce Zimbabwe to 56/4.

The dismissal of Ryan opened the floodgates for Noor. He ripped through the batting line-up.

Noor accounted for the dismissal of Tadiwanashe Marumani, Madhevere, Tafadzwa Tsiga and Newman Nyamhuri.

Zimbabwe were losing the wickets in bulk and their batters had no reply to Noor’s spinning bowling. Nine Zimbabwe batsmen couldn’t even reach a double-figure mark.

Out of 79 runs, 40 came off the bats of Ryan and Madhevere, with the former scoring 30 alone.