Young Afghanistan U19 batsmen and bowlers have been dominating the stats in the ongoing 2018 Ahmad Shah Abdali 4-day competition, Afghanistan’s First-class status tournament.
In the batting department, Afghanistan U19 World Cup player, Darwish Rasooli is leading the charts with 838 runs so far from 10 innings and an average of 93.11. Such numbers are envious ones but Rasooli is a potent match-winner who should be tried out for the National team sooner than later and such performances could boost his chances of playing red-ball cricket for his country in the near future.
The fact that Rasooli leads the next player on the charts, Imran Janat, by almost over 200 runs shows his authority that he has stamped on the tournament so far for AMO region. Another U19 player, Rahmanullah Gurbaz is currently occupying the 4th spot in the run-scoring charts with 566 runs from 11 innings with an average of 51.45.
In the bowling department, Zim-ur-Rahman and Amir Hamza are leading the charts with 39 and 43 scalps respectively but yet another U19 leggie, Qais Ahmad was been rising the charts as well with 36 wickets from 7 matches at an impressive strike-rate of 37 deliveries per wicket. Another youngster, Abdul Wasi is currently on 4th place in the charts with 36 scalps from 6 matches at an even better strike-rate of 32 deliveries per wicket.
Qais, who’s playing for Speen Ghar region, will be playing his first overseas T20 league in the 2018 Caribbean Premier League for St. Lucia Stars.
Guys like Rasooli and Qais need to come quickly in the National set-up as they have been performing consistently both domestically and overseas for 1-2 seasons now and with Afghanistan due to play their maiden Test in Jun 2018 against India, it wouldn’t be a bad ploy to have Rasooli play the match and become the “X-Factor” in their batting line-up.
