Watch: Shaheen Afridi hit the bulls-eye as he knocked over Fareed Ahmed’s stumps to hand Pakistan a 59-run victory in the third ODI against Afghanistan yesterday (August 26), taking them to the No.1 spot in the ICC men’s ODI team rankings.
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Pakistan have overtaken Australia to jump to the top of the ICC ODI team rankings following their 59-run victory in the third ODI against Afghanistan. They needed a 3-0 clean sweep of the three-match ODI series to reach there and they have done exactly that.
Having won the first two matches, Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first in the third at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. At 162-2 in the 37th over, they would have fancied their chances to get close to 300, but some decent death bowling by Afghanistan meant Pakistan were restricted to 268-8.
In each of the first two games, Afghanistan had more than a decent chance of victory by the halfway stage but squandered both opportunities. They did the same in third as well, as their run-chase never got going.
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By the 22nd over, they had lost half their side for the score of 62. By the 33rd over, they were seven down for 97. Thanks to an unexpected late assault by Mujeeb Ur Rahman that took everyone watching and playing by surprise, Afghanistan were able to salvage some pride as they crossed the 200-run mark. Mujeeb scored 64 off 37 balls which included the fastest-ever half-century by an Afghanistan batter in ODIs.
In the end, Afridi cleaned up the tail, picking the wickets of Mujeeb, who was dismissed hit-wicket, and of Fareed, who had walked inside the line exposing all three of his stumps in an attempt to play the scoop shot but missed the ball completely, only for it to crash into his stumps.
Afridi finished with 2-31, while Shadab Khan was the pick of the bowlers, taking 3-42. Pakistan’s next ODI is the curtain-raiser of the Asia Cup, against Nepal on August 30 in Multan.
