HARARE: Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan praised “world class” Mujeeb ur Rahman after the teenage leg spinner took three wickets in Thursday’s three-wicket win over West Indies which kept their hopes of reaching the 2019 World Cup alive.
“He is a world class spinner and he knows his job,” said Rashid.
“He’s capable of bowling against any batsman. We’re just trying to give him more confidence.”
Afghanistan bowled 39 overs of spin against West Indies, severely restricting their scoring options on a helpful surface.
No West Indies batsman reached fifty, while aside from Mujeeb, Afghanistan’s other spinners — including Rashid — struck at regular intervals.
“Rashid Khan and Mujeeb, they are top world class spinners,” agreed West Indies captain Jason Holder. “There’s mystery, and they’ve caused problems around the world.”
Facing a must-win scenario in all of their Super Six games, having lost their first three group games and scraped through to the Super Sixes by virtue of having a better net run rate than Hong Kong and Nepal, Afghanistan appeared to have set up an easy chase when they kept West Indies to 197 for 8 in their 50 overs.
Two-time champions West Indies opted to bat first but they were soon in trouble when veteran batsman Chris Gayle misread a googly from Mujeeb, who is still two weeks shy of his 17th birthday.
Mujeeb added the wickets of top-scorer Shai Hope for 43 and Holder to finish with 3-33.
Mujeeb was ably backed up by the rest of Afghanistan’s spin attack, with Mohammad Nabi, Sharafuddin Ashraf and Rashid sharing four wickets.
For West Indies, aside from Hope’s contribution, veteran top order batsman Marlon Samuels added 36, while Holder made 28 at better than a run a ball.
Holder himself made some early inroads to dent Afghanistan’s chase, removing opener Mohammad Shahzad for eight, and then striking later in the innings to finish with 3-39.
He passed 100 ODI wickets for West Indies in the process.
“At the end of the day, our main focus is to win this tournament. Unfortunately we couldn’t get across the line today, so I guess it’s a bittersweet feeling,” added Holder.
West Indies reduced Afghanistan to 168 for 6, and then 190 for 7 as what should have been a simple chase became a tense battle. But Rashid and Sharafuddin both struck boundaries to see Afghanistan home in the 48th over.
“In the first three matches, we bowled well and we batted well, but we didn’t finish well,” admitted Rashid. “That was the only thing missing. But in the last two games, we’ve finished well.”
In Bulawayo, Scotland raced to an imposing 322 for 6 against United Arab Emirates thanks to opener Matthew Cross’ second ODI century.
Cross shared in a 161-run stand for the second wicket with Calum Macleod, who registered 78, as Scotland weathered the pressure from UAE’s spin attack.
“It got a little bit sticky for a little while, but after that we managed to accelerate and put 320 up,” explained Cross, who was named man of the match for his 114.
Scotland then imparted some pressure of their own, reducing UAE to 117 for 6 inside 20 overs. UAE’s lower middle order showed some fight, however, with left hander Mohammad Usman racing to a career best 80 and no. 8 Ahmed Raza reaching his first ODI fifty.
Usman and Raza shared in a 105-run seventh wicket stand, and after they fell the tail quickly folded, with Scotland wrapping up their win by bowling UAE out in the 48th over.
Their victory means that Scotland now move to the top of the Super Six points table, with five, ahead of their match against Ireland at Harare Sports Club on March 18.
Afghanistan stun West Indies to keep World Cup hopes alive
Afghanistan stun West Indies to keep World Cup hopes alive
Aston Martin says its car risks giving drivers ‘nerve damage’ and can’t finish F1 season-opener
- Aston Martin has predicted it is unlikely to finish Formula 1’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix without its drivers risking suffering permanent nerve damage
MELBOURNE: Aston Martin has predicted it is unlikely to finish Formula 1’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday without its drivers risking suffering permanent nerve damage.
Adrian Newey, the F1 car design great who’s heading into his first race as Aston Martin’s team principal, said Thursday the team’s Honda power unit causes vibrations which could damage the hands of drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. Neither will likely be able to tolerate even half of the 58-lap race distance, Newey added.
Aston Martin had a poor preseason, often slower even than new team Cadillac and it logged the fewest laps of all 11 teams.
“That vibration (transmitted from Honda’s power unit) into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems,” said Newey.
“Mirrors falling off the air, tail lights falling off, that sort of thing, which we are having to address. But, the much more significant problem with that is that that vibration is transmitted ultimately into the driver’s fingers.
“So Fernando is of the feeling that he can’t do more than 25 laps consecutively before he will risk permanent nerve damage into his hands. Lance is of the opinion that he can’t do more than 15 laps before that threshold.
“We are going to have to be very heavily restricted on how many laps we do in the race until we get on top of the source of the vibration — and to improve the vibration at source.”
Despite the long list of issues, Newey says the AMR26 car has tremendous potential as F1 starts a new era of regulations.
He argued the chassis is F1’s fifth-best behind the expected top-teams Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull and that, following an aggressive development program, has the potential to run at the front at some point in 2026.
Alonso, though, is keeping the faith until Friday practice in Melbourne, where he believes fixes on the car might provide a sunnier outlook.
“For us, it’s just vibrating everything,” the two-time F1 champion said.
“But it’s not only for us. The car is struggling a little bit, so that’s why we have some issues, some reliability problems that made our days slightly short.
“Since (pre-season testing in) Bahrain, there were a couple of tests done and some of the solutions are implemented on the car now, so (I’m) curious to see what (happens) tomorrow (and) if we can improve.”
Its disappointing performance has been variously attributed to a compressed design time due to late arrival; Honda’s need to rebuild its research and development capabilities after leaving Red Bull, the challenge of producing a new in-house gearbox, and the team running a so-far unproven fuels partner in Aramco.
But it’s the side effects that will likely sideline its cars early in Sunday’s race at Albert Park.
