Asghar Afghan equals MS Dhoni's record for most T20I wins as a captain

Afghanistan captain Asghar Afghan equalled the record of MS Dhoni for most wins as a captain in T20Is. Afghan managed to tie with Dhoni’s record after his side’s comfortable win against Zimbabwe in the ongoing three-match T20I series in Abu Dhabi. On Friday, Afghanistan won the second T20I by 45 wins. With this, Afghanistan also sealed the series winning the second successive match in this series. 

As far as the overall record of T20I captains is concerned, Dhoni has 41 wins as a captain out of the 72 matches in which he captained India. The former captain had led India in the format between 2007 and 2016. Under his captaincy, India had also won the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007 in South Africa. 

Afghan’s record is superior to that of Dhoni, in terms of win-loss ratio. Dhoni’s win percentage as a captain in the shortest format is 59.28. On the other hand, Afghan has led his national side in 51 T20I matches, winning 41 which makes his win percentage, 81.37. 

Afghanistan defeated Zimbabwe by 45 runs in the second T20I to seal the series

As a matter of fact, Ashar’s win percentage as a T20I skipper is the best for anyone who has led his national team in more than 15 matches. Former Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed is ranked second on that list, with a win percentage of 78.37, having led his national team 37 times in the shortest format. 

Afghanistan’s series win against Zimbabwe will be a big morale boost for them in their preparations for the ICC T20 World Cup 2021, which will be held in India. In the second match, Usman Ghani (49 runs off 34 balls), Mohammad Nabi (40 runs off 15 balls) and Karim Janat (53 runs off 38 balls) helped Afghanistan’s score to 193 for 5. 

Defending the huge total, Afghanistan’s bowlers didn’t allow Zimbabwe to get away with any easy runs. Rashid Khan picked up three wickets with Nabi and Naveen-ul-Haq getting two scalps each. Zimbabwe could only manage 148 runs. In the first match as well, Afghanistan had won the contest by a huge margin of 48 runs.

 After the match, the captain praised an important partnership of Ghani and Janat which laid a good foundation. “T20s are very important for us with the World Cup coming. Morale is high if you win. Today Karim and Usman’s partnership was really good,” Asghar said.