Naveen, Najibullah and Qais give Afghanistan 2-1 series win against UAE
UAE fall short with the bat, leaving Afghanistan with a comfortable total to chase
ESPNcricinfo staff
02-Jan-2024
File photo: Najibullah Zadran smoked 28* off just 13 balls to take Afghanistan over the line • Getty Images
Afghanistan 128 for 6 (Zazai 36, Najibullah 28*, Siddique 2-32) beat United Arab Emirates 126 for 9 (Waseem 27, Naveen 4-20, Qais 3-24) by four wickets
A four-wicket haul from Naveen Ul Haq and a three-for from Qais Ahmad consigned United Arab Emirates to a series defeat in Sharjah as Afghanistan won by four wickets to clinch the T20I trophy 2-1.
Naveen's three wickets in the first-innings powerplay had UAE reeling at 38 for 4 by the sixth over, after which Qais stepped up to claim the next three scalps, including UAE's top scorer Muhammad Waseem (27). UAE's score of 75 for 7 soon became 107 for 9 when Naveen returned to pick up his fourth to finish with 4 for 20, but an unbeaten 19-run tenth-wicket partnership between Muhammad Jawadullah and Junaid Siddique took the hosts to 126. Qais finished with 3 for 24 while Azmatullah Omarzai picked up two.
Afghanistan's chase was comfortable if not clinical. Rahmanullah Gurbaz's 14-ball 20 provided the early impetus, and the pair of Hazratullah Zazai (36) and Ibrahim Zadran (23) scored slowly but kept the chase moving. The Zazai-Ibrahim stand of 37 for the second wicket took Afghanistan past the halfway stage of the target, but a middle-order collapse - where they slid from 85 for 2 to 103 for 6 - gave UAE an opening.
However, with 24 needed in 18 balls, Najibullah Zadran turned up the tempo again, smacking two fours in the 18th over to bring the rate under six. With 13 needed off the last two overs, he finished the game with consecutive sixes to finish unbeaten on 28 at a strike-rate of 215.