Watch: Naveen-ul-Haq took three wickets – all bowled – in the third T20I against Ireland in Sharjah yesterday (March 18), including two off his first two deliveries.
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Winning the toss, Afghanistan elected to bat first. Ibrahim Zadran anchored the innings at No.3, scoring 72 off 51 as none of the other Afghan batters went past 30. They finished on 155-7 from their 20 overs with six Irish bowlers sharing a wicket each.
In response, Ireland were rocked early by Naveen-ul-Haq.
Bowling the second over of the innings, Naveen’s big inswinger cut Andy Balbirnie in half with his first ball: it clipped the leg bail. The next ball, Lorcan Tucker faced a similar fate. Another huge, full, inswinging delivery went through him despite Tucker coming down the track to negate the swing.
Fazalhaq Farooqi (1-19), Azmatullah Omarzai (4-9), and Rashid Khan (1-12) then went through the Ireland middle order as they collapsed from 91-6 to 98 all out.
Fittingly, Naveen, who had started the proceedings for Afghanistan, ended the game by knocking over Ben White with a cunning slower ball. He finished with figures of 2.2-0-10-3 as Afghanistan won the series 2-1. Ibrahim was named Player of the Match while Rashid received the Player of the Series award for his eight wickets and 33 runs.
Naveen will now head to IPL 2024 where he is part of the Lucknow Super Giants squad, for whom he played seven games and took 11 wickets last year.
