Afghanistan kept their Super Eight stage hopes alive with a five-wicket win over United Arab Emirates (UAE) in a Group D match of the T20 World Cup in Delhi on Monday.
South Africa, India and West Indies have already qualified to the Super Eights while New Zealand are favourites to progress from Group D when they meet bottom-placed Canada on Tuesday.
In today’s match, put in to bat, UAE were powered to a competitive total of 160 for 9 led by a spirited knock of 68 runs by Sohaib Khan. But Azmatullah Omarzai, who starred with the ball earlier with a four-wicket haul slammed an unbeaten 40 off 21 balls to hand Afghanistan’s first win in this edition.
TV umpire Paul Reiffel was put to test in the first four overs of the UAE innings when opener Aryansh Sharma edged one from Omarzai to the wicketkeeper where it was unclear if Rahmanullah Gurbaz had pouched the catch cleanly. After going through multiple replays, Reiffel went in favour of the batter. Three balls later Reiffel ruled Aryansh out, caught behind for a duck.
Later UAE captain Muhammad Waseem was trapped lbw for 10 by Mujeeb Ur Rahman, which Reiffel upheld after the batter reviewed the onfield decision. In the fourth over, Sohaib was given lbw but survived after ball tracker revealed that the ball would have missed the leg stump.
The reprive allowed UAE to stage a recovery when Sohaib put up an 84-run partnership with Alishan Sharafu (40). Omarzai ended Sohaib’s fine knock as UAE reached a respectable total.
In the run-chase, Afghanistan lost their inform opener Gurbaz in the first over but Ibrahim Zadran (53) and Darwish Rasooli (33) kept them afloat before Omarzai took them over the line with a boundary.
After the win, Afghanistan skipper Rashid Khan said: “We still have a little bit of hope that we can make it to the next stage. We just need to come up with a positive mindset.
“Even if we don’t make it to the next round, we want to play with the same brand of cricket and make our nation proud.”
