14 August 2006

AFGHANS HOUND QATAR

Zaheer Ibrahim

Afghanistan v Qatar at Kilat Club

AFGHANISTAN WON BY 66 RUNS

Afghanistan showed their class with a thoroughly convincing performance to beat Qatar by 66 runs.

It wasn’t Qatar’s day from the moment that their vice-captain, teenager Zaheer Ibrahim spilled a difficult chance at fine leg from a hook shot of Karim Khan. Not only was the chance missed but his spinning finger was damaged and to make matters worse, when he did come on to bowl, he split the webbing on the fingers of his left hand. That he went into bat later when his team needed him spoke volumes for his character. His captain Omer Taj has also been in the wars with his right hand having taken a couple of recent knocks and had it been any lesser occasion or tournament neither of them would have played.

Saleem Akhtar celebrating his capture of Noor Ali Noori

Afghanistan do hit the ball hard though and all their batsmen are capable of big innings. A mid-innings bump when three quick wickets fell set the scene for their captain, Raees to do what he does best – bat superbly in a crisis. Keeping the ball on the ground, finding the gaps, rotating the strike, he shared two substantial partnerships with Nabi Eisakhil and Ahmad Shah and put on 100 runs in the middle of the innings to steady the ship and put up a platform for some late-order belligerence.

Raees Ahmadzai

239 was a challenging score and with Qatar’s batsmen a little stirred, shaken and ultimately crushed by a barrage of Afghan pace they couldn’t get anywhere near to threatening Afghanistan. On a slow wicket, all the Afghan bowlers managed to make the batsmen hurry and Nasser Khan was the pick of them, picking up three wickets with his away-swing.

Afghanistan: 2 points, Qatar 0 points