Alarm Bells kept ringing for Heath Streak, Graeme Cremer & Zimbabwe, as they once again succumbed to the spin bowlers from Afghanistan to lose the final match of the ODI series by a whopping 146 runs to lose the series 4-1 in UAE.
Easier said than done that both the teams will once again meet in the group phase of World Cup Qualifiers in Zimbabwe and past records won’t matter much on the day but the scars left by Afghan spinners will take a lot of time to heal and Qualifiers are just around the corner.
The stats show the picture. In the five ODI’s, Rashid Khan picked up 16 wickets @3.22 runs per over and average of 7.93 runs per wicket. Strike rate is even more striking with a wicket coming every 14.7 deliveries (wicket per every 15th delivery in his spell).
The carnage was shared from the other end as well with Mujeeb Zadran also picking up 12 wickets @4.58 runs per over and average of 17.58 runs per wicket. Strike rate is also impressive with Mujeeb picking up a wicket every 23rd delivery of his spell.
With the wickets in Zimbabwe conducive to spin and slow in nature, all the teams will not only have to counter the Rashid/Mujeeb combination but watch out for Mohammad Nabi & Sharafuddin Ashraf as well, who complement the duo with good support act and complete the Afghan spin-quartet, which will test any country on any given day.
Batting, however, did not impress much in the ODI series with Rahmat Shah being the most consistent with 272 runs from 5 outings with two half-centuries and a century to finish with an average of 68 runs per innings. The fact that the next best are Mohammad Shahzad with 135 runs (5 innings) and Ihsanullah with 119 runs (4 matches), will need more focus as they travel to Zimbabwe. The two warm-up matches will provide the management enough time to address the issues as bowling will not act as the Savior all the times in such a high-pressure tournament.
