WI vs AFG 3rd T20I: Afghanistan register historic series win
Posted - 2019-11-18T01:15:16+06:00
Updated - 2019-11-18T01:37:45+06:00
Afghanistan beat West Indies by 29 runs in the last match of the three-match T20I series on Sunday, November 17 at Lucknow. With that, they clinched the T20 series by 2-1. This is their first bilateral series win against any of the top ten teams in the MRF Tyres ICC T20I Rankings, except for Bangladesh whom they had whitewashed 3-0 last year. And they did it in style against two-time ICC Men's T20 World Cup title-holders.
Afghanistan went on to win the toss in Lucknow, scoring 156 runs for 8 wickets with the stormy fifty from
. West Indies’ hope was alive with
’s fifty but pacer
didn’t give them any chance to win the match. West Indies stopped at 127 runs for 7 wickets in destined 20 overs.
Earlier, opener Gurbaz had stayed in the crease till the 17
th
over but no one was able to give him proper support from other end. He scored a superb innings of 79 runs off 52 balls with 6 fours and 5 sixes. Gurbaz left the field as the fifth batsman when Afghanistan scored 120 runs in 16.2 overs.
In the end, the
(14) and
(15) helped Afghanistan to post a challenging target. Asghar Afghan was the second best scorer in the batting line-up with 24 runs.
For West Indies,
, Kimo Paul and
took two wickets each.
Chasing the target, West Windies could not overcome the pressure of losing two wickets for just 16 runs. Shai Hopes, however, added 26 runs with Evin Lewis (24), 38 runs with Shimron Hetmyer (11) and 32 runs with
(11). However, no one could able to accelerate the run. Hope dismissed for 52 runs off 46 balls. His innings included three fours and one six.
With controlled spin bowling by Mujeeb-ur-Rahman and
, Naveen-ul-Haq contributed with a superb 3 wickets to pick-up the win. Mujib took 1 wicket for 9 runs in 3 overs. Rashid got one wicket with 18 runs in 4 over.
The only test of the two teams will be on November 27. West Indies and Afghanistan will play a four-day practice match on November 20.
