Pakistan beat Afghanistan in the first ODI by 142 runs. The stars for Pakistan were their ruthless pace trio of Shaheen, Naseem, and Haris Rauf. The trio put up an excellent show utilizing their pace and bounce as they ripped apart the Afghanistan batting order.
Shaheen started the innings with an excellent spell of 4 overs 2 maidens 2-9. Shaheen bowled with pace, bounce, and accuracy and he got the ball to move through the air and off the pitch superbly. The Afghanistan batsman had no answers to what Shaheen dished out at them.
Naseem bowled 5 exceptional overs and took 1-12. Together with Shaheen the 2 ended Afghanistan's hopes of chasing the 202 target that Pakistan had set as they didn't allow the Afghanistan batters to get settled from the get going.
Haris Rauf then came into the attack and cleaned up what remained of the Afghanistan batting as ended up will amazing figures of 6 overs and 2 maidens 5-18. This was a brutal display of pace, bounce, and movement.
The Pakistan batsman earlier in the day struggled against the Afghanistan spinners as they scrapped their way to a target of 201. The top performers for Pakistan with the bat were Imam, Shadab, Iftikhar and Rizwan.
Imam scored a well-composed 61 off 94 as wickets tumbled around him. He stayed calm and pushed on as he was involved in 2 crucial partnerships, one with Iftikhar and the other with Shadab.
Iftikhar played a crucial handoff 30 off 41 as he put a 50 partnership with Imam as they took Pakistan out of a tough situation when they were 62-4. This partnership somewhat brought some respectability to the Pakistan batting effort.
Shadab scored 39 off 50 and was part of two crucial partnerships one with Imam was 40 off 48 and 2nd with Naseem which was worth 34 off 47 both these partnerships ensured Pakistan crossed the 200 mark on what was a tricky pitch.
The Afghanistan spin trio of Mujeeb, Rashid and Nabi were instrumental in restricting the Pakistan batting as they span a web around the Pakistan batting order extracting good turn and bounce from the surface which assisted both fast and spin bowlers.
This was a tough pitch to bat on and Pakistan came out on top as they had the batter batters to tackle the conditions and managed to post a decent enough total on this surface.
Afghanistan will look to regroup and hope to put up a better batting performance in the 2nd ODI.
Well done to Pakistan on the excellent win today.
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