T20 World Cup: Nabi, Gulbadin lead Afghanistan to 147 for 6 against Pakistan

Skipper Mohammad Nabi and Gulbadin Naibs unbeaten knocks in a splendid rearguard action steered Afghanistan to a competitive 147 for six against Pakistan in a Super 12 Group 2 match of the T20 World CupAfghanistan were gasping at 76 for six in the 13th over as Pakistans expansive attack dominated the proceedings but Nabi 35 and Naib 35 seized the momentum with their bighearted effort under pressure and prevented it from becoming a onesided contest They added 71 runs in 71 overs with 43 coming in the last three oversIt all started when they creamed 21 runs from the 17th over bowled by Hasan Ali Together they hit 10 boundaries However initially Shaheen Afridis probing yorkers Haris Raufs variation and the control of Imad Wasim and Shadab Khan tested the batters of Afghanistan who opted to bat Pacer Afiridi created pressure on Afghan batters straightaway with his toetargeting fiery first over and leftarm spinner Wasim followed that up with another tight over upfrontThe dotball pressure got the better of Hazratullah Zazai 0 who went after Wasim and ended up giving a catch to Haris Rauf Mohammad Shahzad 8 lifted Afridis overpitched ball in the cover region to get the first boundary of the team but could not clear the midon one ball later to start his walk back to the dug outRealising that it will be difficult to score off Afridi former skipper Asghar Afghan 10 and Rahmanullah Gurbaz 10 targeted Wasim and collected 17 runs from his next over both hitting him for a six each However Afghans stay was cut short by Rauf while Gurbaz was sent back by Hasan AliAlso Read T20 World Cup West Indies beat Bangladesh by 3 runs in last over thrillerAfghans younger brother Karim Jannat 15 came to the crease and together with Najibullah Zadran 22 had the responsibility to keep afloat his side which was tottering at 39 for four inside Powerplay overs It kept getting worse for Afghanistan as neither the runs came at a good pace and they kept losing wickets Jannat and Zadran were scalped by Wasim and Shadab respectively leaving Nabi with a difficult task to put enough runs on the board to defend which he did with NaibThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever