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That's it from us, Raghav and Rajarshi, as we sign off having completed our coverage for this game. There's still more to come, the Irish Women take on the Proteas Women in the second of the three T20I matches between the two sides at Dublin. Ireland have a 1-0 lead, so with their backs to the wall, South Africa will look to bounce back as hard as they can. Goodbye for now!
Zimbabwe had a sniff in this game when they got rid of the dangerous Rahmanullah Gurbaz early on in the run chase, trapped leg-before by Blessing Muzarabani, but then, Ibrahim Zadran was joined by Rahmat Shah, and the Zimbabwe bowlers never got another chance. The fact that their bowlers strayed down leg and were erratic with their line and length did not help their cause. Ibrahim and Rahmat played with resilience and patience, they had plenty of bad balls to dispatch and pick up the runs, and the runs just kept coming.
Zimbabwe kept rotating their bowlers quite often, but nothing quite worked for them. Not the leg-break of Ryan Burl, nor the sliding left-arm spin of Milton Shumba, nor the off-breaks of Wesley Madhevere or Sikandar Raza. The bounce looked a bit towards the lower side when the spinners bowled, but that didn't deter the batsmen in the slightest. Milestone after milestone kept coming up for the visitors, the highest partnership for the 2nd wicket at the Harare Sports Club was registered, and then Ibrahim Zadran brought up a scintillating hundred laced with elegant strokeplay.
Rahmat Shah, who played second-fiddle to the youngster all along was unlucky to miss out on his own, caught behind trying to chase a short and wide delivery 13 short of the three-figure mark. The winning runs came soon afterwards, Ibrahim hit one to mid-on and scampered through to give his side an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series and 20 points in their bag.
Ibrahim Zadran, Player Of The Match: I am very thankful to Allah for my performance. The wicket was much better for batting, so I decided that I'll play my natural game. The partnership between me and Rahmat Shah was wonderful. Whenever I bat with him I try to enjoy my game. We got 20 points for the Super League, we need to play positive and win the next game.
Hashmatullah Shahidi, Afghanistan captain: The team is playing very well. I am very happy with that. We are trying to get all 30 points, 20 are with us now, and we will look to get 10 more from this series. (On being asked whether he'll make any changes for the 3rd ODI) There's still 2 days to the 3rd game, I will think about whether to change my team for the 3rd ODI.
Craig Ervine (Zimbabwe Captain) : We always knew the pitch would improve, and it was critical for us to form a few partnerships, so we got off to a good start today. Today's wicket was considerably better than the previous game's, so 260-270 was a viable target, but we never made it. We need partnerships because the conditions with the new ball are difficult and you might lose the game in the first five overs.
And there it is! A calculated run-chase has been completed with a sharp single by the man who was the chief architect behind the successful chase! Afghanistan win the game by 8 wickets, taking the series 2-0 with one game to play!
45.0
44.3 Tendai Chatara to Ibrahim Zadran, Afghanistan win! Length delivery on the fourth stump, punched to mid-on, Zadran doesn't quite middle it but it was enough to fetch him a single,
44.2 Tendai Chatara to Ibrahim Zadran, on length and outside off, defended to point
44.1 Tendai Chatara to Hashmatullah Shahidi, length delivery on fourth stump, pushed to cover for a single, scores level!
Video
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R Gurbaz
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C Ervine
Harare Sports Club
