‘The boys will be hurting’ – Gary Wilson

Afghanistan rode on Hazratullah Zazai’s 54-ball 82 after opting to bat, and posted 160/8. Ireland were never allowed to control the chase, though, with Rashid Khan (4/17) and Mujeeb Ur Rahman (3/17) bundling out the home side for just 79 in 15 overs.

Wilson was later asked if toss was a factor – heavy rain overnight had threatened to delay the match – but the Ireland captain refused to blame the conditions. “I don’t think when you lose by 81 runs you can point to the toss,” said Wilson. “Perhaps if you have a 20-run loss or a 10-run loss, you could have said batting second was the harder dig. We would’ve batted had we won the toss, as early on was the best time to bat.

“The boys will be hurting in there and know that that’s not good enough. When we all come to practice tomorrow, I’ll expect everyone to be back up and giving 100%.”

Zazai scored a 74 in the first T20I as well, and has proven hard to handle for the home side. Boyd Rankin, who finished with figures of 2/14, said his wicket was key. “At half-time I was saying it was probably about par score. We could have restricted them to 130-140 if we bowled a little better,” he said.

“Our plans were to get Zazai early, but that hasn’t happened the last two games. I think we contained him pretty well in the first six but obviously we didn’t get him out.”

With a three-match one-day international series to follow the T20Is, Rankin said it was imperative the home side won the final T20I. “It will be good to come back and get a win in that final T20 on Friday going into the one-day internationals next week – it’ll give us a bit of confidence,” said Rankin.

“It was close on Monday (16 runs), but it was their day today – that seems to be the way T20s go, but hopefully we can come back and put it right on Friday.”

Meanwhile, Asghar Afghan, the Afghanistan captain, was full of praise for Zazai. “We lost wickets too early, and that is why [Zazai started slow],” said Afghan. “He played very well today, and put on a partnership with me.

“We didn’t finish well. Maybe [if we had done that], we could have got 180-190. But that is part of the game. You can try, but it’s part of the game. Our target was to get at least 140-plus. Our bowling is very good, so we were confident with our score.”