Mohammad Nabi: Our openers gave us a good start and we could put on a good total. The way we had planned in the morning, we had one or two good partnerships and finished well. We put a good total on the board and put the Ireland team under pressure. Early wickets are more important and our bowlers bowled brilliantly in the first six overs. It was a much better performance today, we performed as a team. We will try our best and hopefully will win the remaining two games as well.
Andy Balbirnie: Our batting let us down, we didn’t do well in the powerplay. It was pleasing to see the fight at the back end with George taking us to the touching distance. He [Hand] seems to make things happen in the middle, be it with bat or bowl. George is very important player for us in all formats. We are 2-1 up but we really want to win the series. We will try to do that on Monday.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz is the Player of the Match: “It was a very important match for us after losing two games,” he says. “My performance wasn’t good but coach and captain asked me to spend some time in the middle. Hazratullah Zazai’s comeback was really important. I feel really relaxed batting with him. We have now adjusted to the weather and pitches and will try to win the remaining two games as well.”
Afghanistan vs Ireland 3rd T20I Highlights today, Friday 12-8-2022. 3rd T20I, Afghanistan tour of Ireland from Civil Service Cricket Club, Stormont, Belfast.
Andy Balbirnie chose to bowl first.
Afghanistan team: 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 2 Hazratullah Zazai, 3 Usman Ghani, 4 Najibullah Zadran, 5 Mohammad Nabi (capt), 6 Ibrahim Zadran, 7 Azmatullah Omarzai, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Naveen-ul-Haq, 10 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 11 Fazalhaq Farooqi.
Ireland team: 1 Paul Stirling, 2 Andy Balbirnie (capt), 3 Lorcan Tucker (wk), 4 Harry Tector, 5 George Dockrell, 6 Gareth Delany, 7 Curtis Campher, 8 Fionn Hand, 9 Mark Adair, 10 Graham Hume, 11 Josh Little.
Head to Head In T20I’s: 20
Afghanistan Won: 14
Ireland Won: 6
Match Timings: 14:30 GMT | 15:30 Local
Umpires – Mark Hawthorne, Roly Black
Match Referee – Graham McCrea
Reserve Umpire – Paul Reynolds
Match number – T20I no. 1731
