Mohammad Nabi: We haven’t played a game for a month. It was a good game, we were 10-15 runs short. It was a good pitch. Ireland batted well. Usman played really well, he’s scored a lot in the domestic games and thus got a chance today. We need to work on our lines and lengths, we missed it in the first six and at the death too.
Andy Balbirnie is the player of the match: It’s a lot more fun when you are scoring runs. We have been hurting after recent losses, but this win is great. (On his batting) When you’re out of form, you can over-analyze, but I kept it simple. I watched the ball closely and did well, I hope my form will continue. (From the team’s pov) We have played well this summer so far without getting over the line. We bowled well, we had wickets in hand with the bat. That meant we could go harder. We need to learn to balance aggression and caution early on. Not losing wickets in the first six is important, we navigated through that well. We had defined roles and stuck to them. Our bowlers did well. Gareth is in good rhythm, we have good options. (On the score) The target was chaseable, we bowled to good plans. We ask our bowlers to be clear mentally and they did it well today.
Afghanistan vs Ireland 1st T20I Highlights today, Tuesday 9-8-2022. 1st T20I, Afghanistan tour of Ireland from Civil Service Cricket Club, Stormont, Belfast.
Afghanistan chose to bat first.
Afghanistan team: 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz, 2 Ibrahim Zadran, 3 Usman Ghani, 4 Hashmatullah Shahidi , 5 Najibullah Zadran, 6 Mohammad Nabi (capt), 7 Azmatullah Omarzai, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 10 Naveen Ul-Haq, 11 Fazalhaq Farooqi.
Ireland team: 1 PR Stirling, 2 Andy Balbirnie (capt), 3 Lorcan Tucker (wk), 4 Harry Tector, 5 Gareth Delany, 6 Curtis Campher, 7 George Dockrell, 8 Mark Adair, 9 Andy McBrine, 10 BJ McCarthy, 11 Josh Little.
Head to Head In T20I’s: 18
Afghanistan Won: 14
Ireland Won: 4
Match Timings: 14:30 GMT | 15:30 Local
Umpires – Paul Reynolds, Roly Black
Match Referee – Graham McCrea
Reserve Umpire – Mark Hawthorne
Match number – T20I no. 1727
