ICC Awards: 5 best knocks of Mohammad Shahzad in 2016
Mohammad Shahzad recently bagged the award for ICC Associate/Affiliate Cricketer of the Year and deservingly so, taking into account his superlative shows for Afghanistan this year. Opening the batting for his country, Shahzad got his team off to fliers on innumerable occasions with very few failures.
He has been an instrumental factor in several wins for Afghanistan in both ODI’s and T20s and he is a major reason why Afghanistan has come this far in international cricket. Apart from being a tremendous wicket keeper, the Afghani Dhoni has grown leaps and bounds as a batsman.
It’s the fag end of 2016 and we look back at some of the scintillating knocks played for his country by Shahzad during the course of the year.
#1 118 vs Zimbabwe, Sharjah
Afghanistan were locking horns with Zimbabwe in a two-match T20 series in the United Arab Emirates in the month of January. The Afghans survived a close shave in the opening match of the series, eschewing a defeat by a mere five runs.
Zimbabwe were up against it to eke out a win in order to level the series. Nevertheless, Mohammad Shahzad ruined their hopes with a belligerent knock of 118 runs from 67 balls that included ten 4’s and eight towering 6’s. He was in there for the entire length of 20 overs and carried his bat in the process.
In a team total of 215 runs, Shahzad piled on more than half of the runs with 22 runs from Mohammad Nabi being the second highest score. Unable to recover from the Shahzad blitz, Zimbabwe was bowled out for 134, which handed Afghanistan with a win by 81 runs and a series triumph by 2-0.
Needless to say, who the Man of the Match was. Shahzad was also adjudged the Player of the series with 151 runs at a strike rate of over 180.