Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag was left impressed by Afghanistan batter Najibullah Zadran following his heroics against New Zealand in the last league match of the T20 World Cup 2021. Sehwag believes an IPL contract is around the corner for Najibullah.
Afghanistan’s middle-order batter scored fluent 73 runs against New Zealand’s high-quality bowling line-up and stood tall while his other teammates weren’t able to cop the heat. It was for his knock that Afghanistan scored 124 runs in 20 overs as no other batter spent time in the middle.
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Virender Sehwag was highly impressed with the 28-year-old and felt that an IPL contract could be round the corner.
“I have played alongside him in T10 League so I was expecting such a knock from him. He is brilliant against both pace and spin and I feel an IPL contract is just around the corner for him,” Sehwag was quoted as saying on Cricbuzz Live.
Sehwag further added that Najib’s innings felt like he was batting on a different pitch compared to his mates.
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“It looked like he (Najibullah Zadran) was batting on a completely different track compared to other Afghanistan batters. He cashed in brilliantly against the spin duo of Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner. Even in Neesham’s first over, he smashed a couple of boundaries,” he added.
Zadran aggregated 172 runs from five matches at 34.40 and a strike rate of 135.43 in the tournament. He has the experience of playing in various T20 leagues around the world. Earlier this year, he also played for the Karachi Kings in the 2021 Pakistan Super League.
He has also featured in the CPL, the Global T20 Canada, the T10 League and Afghanistan’s domestic T20 competition. In 140 T20s, he has scored 2468 runs at an average of 27.42 with 10 fifties and a top score of 97 not out.
