Twitter Reactions: A complete team effort allows Afghanistan go one up in the series

Gulbadin Naib for Afghanistan was majestic in his knock of 64 runs.

By Suryesh M

View : 3.7K

4 Min Read

Aftab Alam
info
Aftab Alam. (Photo Source: Twitter)

After being overhauled by Afghanistan in the T20I series, Ireland faced the visitors in the first ODI game of a 3-match series. The Afghans won the game by 29 runs. Gulbadin Naib was the best performer for the team and has played a crucial knock in this encounter.

With a victory here, the Afghanistan team now leads the series 1-0. More than anything else, it was a complete team effort that made this win possible. For Ireland, the biggest positive from this game will be their bowling. Tim Murtagh registered his best ODI bowling figures in this match. The Irish men will be looking to correct a few errors in their batting department before going into the next ODI and will want to deal better against the spin trio of Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi.

Gulbadin Naib and Shahidi star for Afghanistan with the bat

Batting first in the game, the Afghans didn’t have the ideal start to the innings. They lost the wicket of in-form Hazratullah Zazai early in the innings and Ihsanullah followed him back into the pavilion. However, after these early wickets, the next four batters did well and were among runs.

Gulbadin Naib, Rahmat Shah and Hasmatullah Shahidi, all looked good with the bat. Naib top-scored in the innings with 64 runs but he took 98 balls to score these. Similar was the case with Shahidi who took 82 balls to score 54 runs. Hence, this slowed down the scoring rates building up the pressure in the latter half of the innings.

While Rahmat scored 29 off 29 balls, the Afghan skipper Asghar Stanikzai scored 25 off 23 balls. The visitors lost their last 6 wickets for just 16 runs putting them on the backfoot. They ended their innings with a total of 227 runs after losing 9 wickets. Tim Murtagh was brilliant with the ball and he picked a 4-wicket haul while Boyd Rankin picked 3 wickets.

Not a convincing performance from Ireland

Just like the Afghanistan team, Ireland also didn’t have a great start to their innings. They lost their skipper and opener William Porterfield for 16 runs while his partner Paul Stirling only scored 10 runs. Just after these two wickets fell, wicket-keeper Naill O’Brien was run out for 11 runs and soon Mohammad Nabi dismissed Simi Singh for 16. Despite losing wickets at the other end, Andy Balbarnie was looking good as he scored 55 runs off 82 balls before he was dismissed by Mujeeb Ur Rahman. There wasn’t much gas left in the Irish batting order after his dismissal.

Although the asking rate wasn’t high since there wasn’t much batting left, the batsmen couldn’t afford to take many risks. They were bowled out for 198 runs in 48.3 overs with Rashid Khan finishing the game with two wickets in two balls in the 49th over.

Twitterati was glad that Afghanistan won the match and praised what was a complete team effort. However, they were also highly unimpressed with the umpiring in the match. The tweeple felt that Gulbadin Naib was dismissed due to a wrong decision. Also, Rashid Khan missed out on about two wickets due to the umpiring errors.

Here is how Twitter reacted:

Get every cricket updates! Follow Us:

googletelegraminstagramwhatsappyoutubethreadstwitter

Download Our App

For a better experience: Download the CricTracker app from the IOS and Google Play Store