Afghanistan fans witnessed a historic day in their cricket history as the men's team registered their biggest-ever ODI win by a margin of runs on Thursday, December 19. Afghanistan displayed utter dominance to win the second ODI match against Zimbabwe by 232 runs in Harare.
Opener Sediqullah Atal registered his maiden ODI century to help Afghanistan post a big total of 286 and then the bowlers produced some magical spells to bowl out Zimbabwe to just 54 in 17.5 overs. The young rising spinner Allah Ghazanfar and pacer Naveed Zadran picked three wickets each to force Zimbwbe to witness their joint-fourth lowest ODI total.
Afghanistan's previous biggest ODI win by runs came against mighty South Africa in September this year. Rashid Khan picked five wickets to lead the Afghan side to a huge 177-run win while defending 311 in Harare. Afghanistan have also secured the qualification to the next's year ICC Men's ODI Champions Trophy in Pakistan after their famous campaign in the World Cup 2023 in India.
Captain Hashmatullah Shahidi talked about the all-round and team effort that led his team to a huge win against Zimbabwe.
"Very impressed with the way the openers batted. The credit goes to them. We outclassed them in all departments," Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi said in the post-match presentation. "[286] When I was also batting, the wicket was a bit tricky. I thought it was enough runs, but we had to work hard for the win. We gave our 100% and we did well. Our team performance is going up day by day. Everyone takes responsibility and everyone knows their roles. We want to carry on with this performance. We have in mind that we will play Champions so we want to be prepared for that. [On the win] We are felling very proud and happy."
Zimbabwe Playing XI: Ben Curran, Tadiwanashe Marumani (wk), Brian Bennett, Dion Myers, Craig Ervine (c), Sean Williams, Sikandar Raza, Newman Nyamhuri, Richard Ngarava, Tinotenda Maposa, Trevor Gwandu.
Afghanistan Playing XI: Sediqullah Atal, Abdul Malik, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Azmatullah Omarzai, Mohammad Nabi, Ikram Alikhil (wk), Rashid Khan, Naveed Zadran, AM Ghazanfar, Fazalhaq Farooqi.