Afghanistan levelled the T20I series to 1-1 with an impressive 50-run victory over Zimbabwe at Harare Sports Club.
The visitors won the toss and elected to bat first on another hot day with temperatures ranging between 32-33 degrees Celsius. Their innings got off to a rocky start, losing their first three wickets in the powerplay for just 33 runs.
Azmatullah Omarzai and Darwish Rasooli reconstructed the innings with an impressive 53-run partnership.
However, Omarzai perished for just 28 runs off the bowling of Ryan Burl.
Darwish continued to play superbly, top-scoring with 58 runs off 42 balls, including his first T20 half-century. Afghanistan set a decent target of 153/6 in their 20 overs.
For Zimbabwe, only Trevor Gwandu and Ryan Burl were in decent form, picking up two wickets each.
Zimbabwe’s chase never really got going, with only two batsmen contributing meaningful scores. Skipper Sikandar Raza scored 35 runs, and Brian Bennett scored 29.
Wednesday’s hero, Tashinga Musekiwa, had a positive start, playing some beautiful strokes, including a maximum and a boundary, before falling cheaply for just 13 runs.
In the post-match interview, Raza mentioned, “Once again, our batting was our Achilles’ heel, and we gave away a lot of cheap wickets. Hopefully, we will rectify it tomorrow in the series decider.”
Afghanistan’s bowling unit worked well, with Rashid Khan picking up three wickets for 20 runs, and Naveen-ul-Haq Murid also taking three wickets in today’s match.
With everything to play for on Saturday at Harare Sports Club, the series decider promises to be a thrilling encounter.
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