Afghanistan bowlers rose to AN unlikely occasion in a fantastic effort to defend their paltry 134 to storm into the Super League semifinals at the U19 World Cup. Sri Lanka, WHO had a dream run within the tournament with wins over Australia, West Indies, and Scotland within the group stage, extensively fragmented struggling to fall agonizingly short within the chase.
Just 5 days once the batters helped them usurp Zimbabwe to the knockouts, Afghanistan suffered an enormous collapse after being asked to bat 1st within the game. Afghanistan went from 24/0 to 26/4, before Allah Noor and Abdul Hadi plotted recovery. however, they too could only add forty-seven runs before captain Dunith Wellalage dismissed Noor. just once it looked like a lower-order capitulation was round the corner, Hadi and #8 batter Noor Ahmad came together to show more resistance. It took them past the 100-run mark however as before long as left-arm pacer Vinuja Paul broke through with Ahmad's wicket, Afghanistan went from 132 for seven to 134 all out. Paul finished with astonishing figures of - nine.1 overs | two maidens | one0 runs | five wickets.
The chase should've been simple for an aspect that has largely batted well within the tournament. They even reserved their best batting effort - in chase of 250 against West Indies for their final league game six days ago. However, the knockouts stage brought a special level of pressure and they crumbled spectacularly around it.
The almightly downfall began as early as the opening over when Bilal Sami took out opener Sadish Rajapaksa for a first-ball duck. The Afghanistan bowlers had few runs to fight with, however, they took it to Sri Lanka nonetheless within the early stage of the chase to keep pushing them on the back foot. Sri Lanka got into a rut that they just could not emerge out of like two for one became twenty for three, 30 for 5, and alarmingly forty-three for seven within the eighteenth over. Six of the top seven in Sri Lanka's batting card came to a single-digit score to push them towards AN embarrassing surrender in what should've otherwise been a routine run-chase.
At this stage, up stepped captain Wellalage within the hope of altering the narrative and therefore the course of the game. He combined with #9 batter Raveen de silva to bat all the way till the forty-first over, and additional importantly inch Sri Lanka past one hundred and nearer to the target. It began to look like a night of 'so close to, nonetheless thus far' for Afghanistan when Wellalage cut AN innocuous short ball to the backward point that completed the game-defining partnership. That dismissal pushed Sri Lanka to 112 for eight and gave Afghanistan a reason to believe once more. Leg spinner Izharulhaq Naveed helped Afghanistan dig their teeth more as he bowled well-disguised bowling to knock over de silva, the opposite set Sri Lankan batter.
Vinuja Paul had the chance to feature some batting heroics to his first-innings fifer. He brought a touch little bit of composure that Sri Lanka required from 116 for nine within the forty-second over as they had lots of time to knock off the nineteen remaining runs. With each passing over, they inched nearer to pulling that off, however at the end of the forty-sixth, a shot to stay Vinuja on strike at the beginning of forty-seventh all over with a runout - fourth of the innings - to send Afghanistan players into a delirium. with that dismissal, Sri Lanka fell simply four runs in need of their target, permitting Afghanistan to line up a match date with the form-team England on February one.
Brief Scores: Afghanistan U19 134 in forty-seven.1 overs (Abdul Hadi thirty-seven, Noor Ahmad 30; Vinuja Ranpaul 5-10) beat Sri Lanka U19 one hundred thirty in forty-six overs (Dunith Wellalage 34; Bilal Lappic 2-33, Noor Ahmad 1-20, Naveed Zadran 1-19) by four runs