Afghanistan wicketkeeper-batter Rahmanullah Gurbaz was in sublime form during the second ODI match against Pakistan. After being bundled out for a mere 59 runs in opening encounter, Afghanistan bounced back in the second game as they posted 300 on the board thanks to Gurbaz’s 151 off 151 balls. Apart from Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran also played a decent knock of 81 runs. For Pakistan, Shaheen Afridi scalped two wickets while Naseem Shah and Usama Mir shared one wicket each.
Yesterday was hard for all of us: Gurbaz on losing the opening match
After his marathon innings, Pakistan players including Mohammad Rizwan and Fakhar Zaman were seen congratulating the batter. The batter also spoke about the loss in the opening match. “Yeah, we had a very big day yesterday. So we discussed a lot about yesterday and we took the positive thing from yesterday and yeah, I think some days come in life, which is a hard days and it was yesterday for us.”
I always enjoyed betting with Ibrahim Zadran for a long time. So yeah, we just are positive. Always we support each other during the match. We have quality spinners and I am very confident that we will defend this total,” Gurbaz said during the mid-innings break.
Earlier in the match, the hosts won the toss and opted to bat first. As mentioned above, Gurbaz was the star with the bat as he scored his highest individual ODI score enroute including his 5th ODI century. He scored 151 off 151 balls and was ably supported by Ibrahim Zadran who scored 80 off 101 balls in a 227-run opening stand for the first wicket.
The innings after their dismissal fell off a little bit as the visitors came back at the death overs. But it was Mohammad Nabi’s 29 off 29 balls and skipper Shahidi’s 15* off 11 balls that took the total exactly to 300/5 in 50 overs. The Men in Green bowlers gave away 18 extras.
