Pakistan bat; Naseem Shah and Rashid Khan make ODI returns
47.1 overs Pakistan (Imam 61, Iftikhar 30, Mujeeb 3-31, Nabi 2-34, Rashid 2-42) vs Afghanistan
Playing against Afghanistan, Pakistan perhaps knew the threat that spin trio Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi possessed. But they couldn't quite come out unscathed when faced with the challenge.
Mujeeb, Rashid and Nabi shared seven wickets between them as Afghanistan dismissed Pakistan for 201 in the first ODI in Hambantota. Only Imam-ul-Haq provided reasonable resistance with a steady 61 but not without offering a few chances.
On a dry surface on a hot afternoon, Babar Azam won the toss and Pakistan opted to bat but soon were reduced to 7 for 2 in two overs. Left-arm pacer Fazalhaq Farooqi troubled Fakhar Zaman with swing before nicking him off to first slip. He slipped in an inswinging yorker on the second ball before getting one to move away, which Fakhar couldn't resist poking. Mujeeb, opening the bowling, slipped one full in line of the stumps that skid on, beating Babar's defence to trap him lbw for a three-ball blob.
Mohammad Rizwan, back at No. 4 after batting at No. 5 in the previous series against New Zealand, looked to be positive from the get-go. He stroked Farooqi for two fours in the fifth over. First, he lofted a full ball aerially through the gap at extra cover before caressing one through the same region a ball later. Rizwan hit two more fours off Farooqi's next over to get Pakistan's run-rate up.
But Mujeeb, in his fourth over, trapped Rizwan lbw to set Pakistan back. He tossed up a carrom ball around leg that Rizwan missed in his attempted defence to the on side and was hit on the back leg. Replays showed it would have clipped the bails. Agha Salman, coming off a successful series against New Zealand at home in May, was stuck before being flummoxed by a googly from Rashid as Pakistan stumbled to 62 for 4.
All the while, Imam steadily carried on, punishing the bad balls from Farooqi but more importantly, playing Mujeeb, Rashid and Nabi's spin off the back foot. His half-century was a proper graft, in that it included just the two fours. He ran well between the stumps even as wickets fell around him.
But in a bid to up the ante against Nabi, he top-edged one after coming down the track. However, Hashmatullah Shahidi couldn't hang on after running back from cover. Imam got another life when a lofted drive to deep cover was shelled by Azmatullah Omarzai before a miscued pull fell just short of long-on running in. However, Imam's luck ran out when he looked to hit Nabi over mid-on, miscuing a shot to Rashid, who took a tumbling catch after backpedalling.
Through his stay in the middle, Imam found an able ally first in Iftikhar Ahmed, with whom he added 50 off 69 for the fifth wicket, and then in Shadab Khan for a 40-run partnership.
Iftikhar helped lead Pakistan's recovery by using the crease against spin and knocking them down for singles and doubles. He did not let short and wide deliveries go unpunished, using the cut shot for each of his two fours. But an offspinning delivery from Nabi, that held up in the surface, saw him chip a catch to short midwicket.
On the other hand, Shadab, playing just his fourth ODI in 2023, picked Rashid's googly early and smacked him over his head. He added a further 34 with Naseem Shah for the ninth wicket before a direct hit from Mujeeb from fine leg saw him run-out at the bowler's end.
In the interim, Mujeeb and Rashid has also cleaned up Usama Mir and Shaheen Shah Afridi to hasten Pakistan's end. Mujeeb returned three wickets while Rashid and Nabi finished with two apiece as Afghanistan bowled Pakistan out for the first time in ODIs.
