Afghanistan and their box-office pull

Mohammad Nabi is whir of arms and legs. Then he hangs almost stock still in mid-air. The left arm, his wrong arm, stretches above his head and plucks a ball that was in the air space beyond the long-on boundary back into the field of play. For a moment, it looks as if he had taken the catch of the tournament to dismiss Oman opener and half-centurion Zeeshan Maqsood. He didn't but in that moment, he was everything the Afghanistan cricket team has been portrayed as. Eye-catching, flamboyant and box office.

A tall, strapping fast bowler walks out at No. 9. The scoreboard asks him to hit 10 runs in five balls. He takes guard deep in his crease. Dawlat Zadran, with his almost Waqar Younis-like action and almost Waqar Younis-like yorkers, knows what to expect even if it is a spinner bowling the 20th over. In comes the fuller ball on off stump, out comes the slash over extra cover, up jumps the fielder in the deep but he is beaten. Ajay Lalcheta dials the blockhole again and gets the wrong number. Six again and game over.

It has been easy to paint Nabi, Dawlat and Afghanistan as larger than life. But today, in Fatullah, it wouldn't have hurt them to be a bit more down to earth.

A Gulbadin Naib delivery in the 17th over whooshed past the batsman on the full and touched down in front of the wicketkeeper. Mohammad Shahzad was late in trying to put some of his body behind the ball because instinct had taken over by then and he was trying to avoid injury. A flail of the arms at the bowler suggested he was not at all impressed. Five no-balls gifted away.

Naib was trying too hard and the ball had slipped. It was the 17th over, so the yorker had been on his mind. Understandable tactics, but he didn't need the magic delivery. His gentle pace gave the batsman nothing and nagging lines around the off stump fetched him 2 for 24 off his four overs. It could have been 2 for 24, minus five no-balls.

When a match is decided in the final over, by margin of three wickets, those are the mistakes that sting the most; the kind that could have been easily avoided.

Aamir Kaleem dug a yorker into the covers and set off for a risky single because his partner Adnan Illyas was doing a spectacular impression of a revolving door - any ball directed straight at him was being whacked away. The fielder at cover had the chance to punish Kaleem for his greed but the throw wasn't great, the bowler Dawlat couldn't collect it and everyone was fuming over another silly mistake. From almost turning sixes into catches, they had now fluffed a ready-made run-out.

Afghanistan captain Asghar Stanikzai might feel aggrieved at a personal level too. He had come in at 5 for 1 and lit the fuse for the chase of 166 with a hat-trick of fours against Lalcheta: two resounding sweeps sandwiching a bludgeon over midwicket. Then both Stanikzai and Noor Ali Zadran carved Munis Ansari for four fours in the fifth over: a cut to the point boundary even when the ball wasn't that wide, a straight drive with considerable sting, and a couple of on-drives with controlled whips of the wrists to beat mid-on to his right, and deep midwicket to his left. Afghanistan were 57 for 1 now, their run-rate was 11.40, the required rate was only 7.26.

Stanikzai didn't need to go for another big hit after such risk-free carnage. But he did, and the ugly slog was loaded with risk for he had tried to drag a slower ball from outside off. The top-edge resulted and he was caught quite coolly by Bilal Khan on the edge of the deep square leg fence. Two balls later, a Karim Sadiq chip was brilliantly taken by Adnan Illyas sprinting to his left from mid-on. Mehran Khan, the successful bowler, nabbed Nabi too to finish with 4-0-18-3 simply by inviting the batsmen to make their own mistakes. Afghanistan obliged and became 85 for 4 in the 10th over, needing another 81 to win.

"We have problem in the middle order. Batsmen are not taking the chances," Afghanistan coach Inzamam-ul-Haq said. "First six overs we held the Oman team, but we lost our grip."

Noor Ali, a classical player, decided enough was enough and took over. His partnership with Najibullah Zadran lasted seven overs. There were only eight dot balls. The good ones became singles, and quite often they were turned into twos, like a spinner's yorker in the 15th over was so gently turned to the vacant midwicket region to evade the man in the deep. Next ball was short and wide and Noor Ali laid into it with a cut for four.

"Everybody thinks T20 is all about fours and sixes. I think Noor Ali and Najib put pressure on the bowlers not with sixes and fours but with singles and twos," Inzamam said. "In our team meetings, we talk about going for singles and twos off every ball. When it's a loose ball, you're international players, ball will easily go for fours and six. But strike rotation is the main thing."

Noor Ali batted till the 17th over, made 63 off 44 balls with 25 singles and three twos. That was the match-winning innings. It wasn't flashy, but it was substantial, clever, well-planned and wonderfully executed.

Only for Dawlat to steal the thunder, Afghanistan style.

At a time when the ICC have shrunk the World Cup to only 10 teams, four Associates have provided a feast of compelling cricket in the Asia Cup qualifiers.

All three games so far have been tight contests. Batsmen have flourished on fine T20 pitches with healthy pace and true bounce. The fourth highest T20I score was made on Friday by Hong Kong's Babar Hayat - 122 off 60 balls. But he ended on the losing side because the bowlers have also shown bottle under pressure.

Like today, Bilal, who has a little bit of Ashish Nehra to his action, speared a couple of yorkers to topple two wickets and give away only two runs in the 17th over of the chase. Twenty-seven off 24 balls had become a slightly pesky 25 off 18. Ansari, the seamer who bowls with a slingy arm like Lasith Malinga, kept his 18th over down to four runs and the equation became 21 off 12 suddenly.

Afghanistan have certainly grown as a cricket team. They were given Associate status only in 2013. Three short years later, they have beaten Bangladesh, a Full Member, in the previous Asia Cup, claimed a maiden World Cup victory, celebrated series wins over Zimbabwe, another Full Member, away from home and then home-adjacent in the UAE.

They are in the top 10 teams in ODIs, and have a representative each - Mohammad Shahzad and Dawlat - in the top 10 batsmen and bowlers rankings in T20Is. Shapoor Zadran has played for a Rest of the World XI alongside Brian Lara, Brendon McCullum, Mahela Jayawardene and Graeme Smith in a charity match at the Oval and Nabi has even given the old T20 leagues a spin. Would it be that improbable that in another three years, Afghanistan may have Test status?

However, they shouldn't forget their peers are adamant about not lagging behind too far. So much that a defeat to Oman today would have knocked Afghanistan out of the Asia Cup. And that possibility didn't look all that left-field.