Afghanistan Hold Their Nerve To Clinch A One-Wicket Win

Afghanistan 211-9 (Shenwari 96) beat
Scotland 210 (Machan 31) by one wicket
World Cup, 17th Match Pool A at Dunedin
Scorecard | Highlights

Afghanistan's World Cup fairytale continued as they clinched a nail-biting one-wicket win in the last over against Scotland in Dunedin on the back of Samiullah Shenwari's spectacular batting.

Neither team had won a World Cup game prior to this.

The Associate teams, Scotland and Afghanistan, gave us another thriller after previous day’s Ireland-United Arab Emirates encounter.

Afghanistan won the toss and opted to bowl first making one change from their previous game. Gulbadin Naib replaced the injured Mirwais Ashraf.

Scotland didn’t start on the best note losing Calum MacLeod (0) very early. Hamish Gardiner (5) struggled before the impressive Hamid Hassan (1-32) got him lbw.

Kyle Coetzer (25) struck some powerful boundaries before being bowled out by Dawalat Zadran (3-29).

A 50-run partnership between Matt Machan (31) and skipper Preston Mommsen (23) helped Scotland consolidate.

While four batsmen got starts in the middle order for Scotland, no one went on to score even a half-century, as Scotland quickly collapsed to 144 for eight before the lower order fight back.

Spinner Majid Haq (31) put on 62 runs for the ninth wicket with Alasdair Evans (28) before Shapoor Zadran (4-38) cleaned up the tail.

However that was not before Scotland pushed past 200 for the first time at World Cups, to reach 210, assisted by 25 extras.

Dawlat and Hassan bowled beautifully on a pitch that had a little life to complement Shapoor, their pace spearhead. They were able to move the ball off the pitch, just about enough to trouble the Scottish batsmen.

Afghanistan’s chase was a roller-coaster ride for their fans.

They started the chase in spectacular fashion, Javed Ahmadi (51) racing away to a half-century off just 51 balls, his fifth in ODIs.

Nawroz Mangal (7), who reached 1,000 One-Day International runs during his innings, was outscored heavily in the opening partnership before Evans' (2-30) double strike in the eighth over set Afghanistan back a little.

Ahmadi, now joined by Shenwari (96), continued to tonk the ball, going for the four or nothing approach.

After adding 39 for the third wicket, Ahmadi departed due to a mishit skier well taken by Richie Berrington (4-40), who was also the pick of the Scottish bowlers.

That triggered a collapse, as Afghanistan saw themselves being reduced to 97 for seven by the 24th over, Berrington claiming three more lower middle-order wickets after dismissing Ahmadi.

Shenwari, though, had other plans, eventually playing out the longest ODI innings by an Afghanistan batsman in terms of balls - 147.

He put on 35 with Dawlat (9) and then a crucial 60 with Hamid (15).

The ninth-wicket partnership almost looked like it would take Afghanistan home as Shenwari was farming the strike, playing calmly and stroking the big hits whenever the asking rate went up a notch.

However, problems struck for Afghanistan in the 47th over as Shenwari got carried away with his hitting.

After smashing the unusually slow and flighted deliveries of Haq (1-45) for three sixes, he perished attempting a fourth, hitting one down the throat of deep mid-wicket, thus narrowly missing out on a brilliant century.

Nevertheless, Shenwari now has nine half-centuries, the most by any Afghanistan batsman. His knock was studded with seven fours and five sixes.

The last wicket pair of Shapoor and Hamid continued the fight with Afghanistan needing 19 off the last 19 deliveries.

Shapoor survived a close lbw call that was reviewed unsuccessfully. He also survived a close run out attempt as Machan missed the stumps by a whisker.

Eventually he flicked a full delivery down the leg stump behind square to get the winning runs, setting off for a victory run.

For Scotland, Josh Davey (2-34) and Evans were extremely impressive. Iain Wardlaw (0-61) was the only bowler to have an off day.

This is only the fifth one-wicket win World Cup history, showing how tight the match was, as Afghanistan picked up a win in their very first World Cup campaign.

© Cricket World 2015