Shahzad, Stanikzai script Afghanistan win

Shahzad, though, wasn’t a factor until later in Afghanistan’s innings. To start with, it wasn’t him who took on the spin-seam opening combination of Mark Watt and Josh Davey. Noor Ali Zadran, who is often the docile partner in one of the most successful relationships for Afghanistan, was the one doing the early running. He raced to 17 from 12 with two fours and a six before an overenthusiastic slash at a short and wide ball from Alasdair Evans resulted in a catch to Davey at third man.

Shahzad wasn’t able to stick around long enough and eventually toe-ended a seam-up delivery from Watt, the left-arm spinner, to Calum MacLeod at long off. Afghanistan could have had more but where it stood wasn’t bad especially when it seemed like 159 was a stiff total on the same strip in the first game.

Landing the ball within the arc of George Munsey’s swing and keeping it slightly short to Kyle Coetzer were big mistakes and Afghanistan paid. After the first over, nearly every over there on cost it eight runs or more. The big overs weren’t just 10 runs big, some were as massive as 18, and that’s not a good sign against a side that has a few more batsmen coming on.

At one stage, it seemed like Scotland wouldn’t need to go that deep to complete a victory because Munsey and Coetzer had carried the side to 84 for no loss from 8.4 overs, meaning Scotland needed another 87 runs to win from 68 balls. And that’s when tragedy struck. Coetzer holed one to Najibullah Zadran at deep midwicket off Samiullah Shenwari and Munsey was trapped in front of the stumps by Rashid Khan two balls later.

From there on, it was the Rashid show. The legspinner, who was the architect of Afghanistan’s series wins over Zimbabwe, threw the ball up and got the batsmen to go after him. With the run-rate creeping up, the batsmen were left with no choice but to go after him and that resulted in the wicket of Berrington for Rashid, who finished on 2 for 28. Before which there was the silly run-out that accounted for MacLeod.

Despite that, as a result of that smashing start, Scotland was level with Afghanistan at the 15-over mark, both sides having got 120 runs. The difference was that Afghanistan had lost two wickets while Scotland had four top-order batsmen back in the hut. Also, it didn’t have a Stanikzai-like performance in the middle to aid it. It did have Matt Machan making 36 from 31 and Mommsen adding an unbeaten 17, but it wasn’t enough to topple a side that managed to execute its plans better on the day.

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