Twitter Reaction
Twitter Reaction: Afghanistan claimed their maiden WC Qualifier crown after beating Windies in the final
By Sandy - Mar 26, 2018 5:19 am
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Afghanistan clinched their maiden ICC World Cup Qualifier trophy after beating Windies in the final of the 2018 ICC World Cup Qualifier. Windies decided to bat first after winning the toss and were bowled out for just 204 runs (46.5 overs). In reply, Afghanistan chased down that target in 40.4 overs after losing 3 wickets.

Afghanistan cricket team

Windies’ top-order batsmen failed to play big innings and as a result, they couldn’t put a fighting total. Chris Gayle fell early for just 10 runs while the other top-order batsmen couldn’t reach the 30-runs mark.

While Rovman Powell was the highest scorer in that innings with the 44-runs knock, Shimron Hetmyer (38) was the only other Windies’ batsman to reach the 30-runs mark.

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Windies was bowled out for just 204 runs while Mujeeb Ur Rahman was the best bowler among the Afghan bowlers with the figure of 9.5-0-43-4. Apart from that, Gulbadin Naib (2/28) took two wickets while Dawlat Zadran (1/26), Sharafuddin Ashraf (1/26) and Rashid Khan (1/41) picked up one wicket each.

With that one wicket, Rashid Khan (44 matches) becomes the fastest bowler to complete 100 ODI wickets. He broke the record of Australian pacer Mitchell Starc who had achieved that feat in 52 ODIs.

In reply, opener Mohammad Shahzad scored 84 runs while no.3 batsman Rahmat Shah played a 51 runs knock. Both of them put a 90-runs partnership for the second wicket which set up the game.

Afghanistan easily achieved that total in 40.4 overs after losing only 3 wickets.

Among the Windies bowlers, Chris Gayle (2/38) took 2 wickets and Keemo Paul (1/29) collected the other wicket.

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Mohammad Shahzad won the Player of the Match award for his superb batting performance. In the meantime, Zimbabwean all-rounder Sikander Raza was awarded the Player of the Tournament. Afghanistan claimed the ICC WC Qualifier trophy for the first time while Windies ended as a runner-up in their first WC Qualifier.

However, Afghanistan and Windies both have already qualified for the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup after reaching in this final. Afghanistan ended at the third position in the group stage after clinching only one victory against Nepal. But then they performed superbly in the super six stages where they won all the three games and qualified for the final.

Meanwhile, Windies was the group champion after winning all their group stage matches. In the super six stages, Windies lost against Afghanistan and won against Zimbabwe and Scotland. After securing a marginal 5 runs (D/L method) victory against Scotland, Windies reached in the final and qualified for the tournament.

Now, we will look at the Twitter reactions of this match

Tags 2018 World Cup QualifierAfghanistanfinalMohammad ShahzadMujeeb ZadranRashid KhanWindies

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