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Fatullah: Afghanistan registered a fine victory against United Arab Emirates in the inaugural game of the Asia Cup T20 qualifiers at Dubai on Friday.
They won the thrilling encounter by 16 runs to kick start the tournament with a bang. Rohan Mustafa was a sensation wot watch as he accounted with 77 runs with the bat and then chipped in with three wickets with the ball.
After winning the toss, UAE elected to bat first on a pitch which looked good for batting. UAe openers fired with all guns to record their highest partnership in T20 cricket as they put up an opening stand of 83 to script history and overhaul their previous best of 67 runs.
Rohan Mustafa too inscribed his name in the history of cricket when he became the only third player to have scored a fifty, highest individual score for UAE in T20 cricket as he surpassed Amjad Javed’s tally of 76 runs.
After a powerful start, they somehow lost the plot in the middle as wickets tumbled like nine pins. They somehow managed a fighting total of 176 in their 20 overs and needed a strong bowling performance to restrict the star studded Afghanistani batting line-up.
Afghanistan suffered couple of early blows when they come out to bat. Mohammad Shahzad and Usman Ghani were sent back inside three overs as Farhan Ahmed and Mohammad Naveed got the early breakthroughs and got their team to a much needed start.
Karim Sadiq played a vital knock of 72 runs and almost carried his side over the line. But lost his wicket in the 19th over as the match went on to the final over. Mustafa got rid of the Afghanistan tail with his guile and finished off the game in the final over.
Brief scores
United Arab Emirates - 176 for 4 (Rohan Mustafa 77, Rashid Khan 3-25)
Afghanistan - 160 (Karim Sadiq 72, Rohan Mustafa 3-19)
Result - United Arab Emirates won by 16 runs
Points - United Arab Emirates 2, Afghanistan 0
MOM - Rohan Mustafa (UAE)
