Babar Azam, Rizwan assist Pakistan attain No. 1 ODI rankings with collection sweep vs Afghanistan

Pakistan went to the highest of the ODI rankings after their clear sweep towards Pakistan within the 3-match ODI collection. Pakistan defeated Afghanistan on the R Premadasa Stadium on Saturday, 26 August by 59 runs to finish their collection victory.

Pakistan moved up within the rankings and eliminated Australia from the highest place forward of the ODI World Cup 2023. The group will get an opportunity to stay on the high spot going into the premier ICC match if they’ll win the Asia Cup 2023. Pakistan now have 2725 factors, forward of Australia’s 2714. India are ranked third going into the continental match.

AFG vs PAK, third ODI: Highlights

It was becoming that Pakistan have been guided by captain Babar Azam and wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan, who struck a gritty 110-run partnership in robust batting circumstances. Pakistan have been off to a bat begin with openers Fakhar Zaman and Imam-ul-Haq going again to the pavilion inside 13 overs and the onus lay on the senior batters of the aspect to do the vast majority of the work. Both Babar (60 off 86) and Rizwan (67 off 79) disappoint and patiently added runs within the first innings of the match.

Useful contributions from Salman Agha (38* off 31) and Muhammad Nawaz (30 off 25) gave Pakistan a decent whole to defend.

Pakistan would have been assured given that they had defended 202 runs within the first ODI match of the collection, however for this recreation, neither did they’ve Naseem Shah, nor Haris Rauf.

However, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Faheem Ashraf began off properly with the brand new ball and jolted Afghanistan with the wicket of the earlier match’s centurion Rahmanullah Gurbaz. Spinners Shadab Khan and Muhammad Nawaz did their half in limiting Afghanistan and Hashmatullah Shahidi’s group have been 97/7 at the beginning of the thirty third over, observing yet one more defeat.

However, some struggle had nonetheless remained within the spirited Afghans as Mujeeb Ur Rahman donned the batter’s function and hit a speedy half-century off 26 balls. This was the quickest ODI fifty by any Afghan participant and it helped the Afghan whole to look significantly better than it ought to have been. At the time Mujeeb acquired out through a success wicket – the primary time for an Afghan batter in worldwide – Afghanistan had 199 runs on board. After Mujeeb’s 64 off 37, the Afghan aspect added simply 10 runs extra and have been bowled out for 209 runs in 48.4 overs. Mohammad Rizwan was awarded the participant of the match, whereas Imam-ul-Haq bagged the participant of the collection award.

Edited By:

Kingshuk Kusari

Published On:

Aug 27, 2023