DUBAI: Asif Ali smashed four sixes in the penultimate over to help Pakistan achieve a hard-fought five-wicket win over Afghanistan in the Twenty20 World Cup in Dubai on Friday.
With Pakistan needing 24 runs off the final two overs, Asif lifted paceman Karim Janat’s first, third, fifth and sixth balls over the boundary to help Pakistan overhaul a tricky 148-run target.
Asif finished with 25 off just seven balls with four sixes and a single, leaving Janat and all the other Afghan players frustrated.
The win gave Pakistan a third win in as many games in Group 2 of the Super 12 stages, almost assuring a semifinal place, needing just one more win from their last two games.
Afghanistan scored a fighting 147-6 in their 20 overs with Gulbadin Naib and skipper Mohammad Nabi scoring 35 each.
Skipper Babar Azam anchored Pakistan’s innings with a 47-ball 51 but his dismissal — bowled by spinner Rashid Khan — turned the game on its head in the 17th over with Pakistan needing 26 off the last three overs.
Paceman Naveen-ul-Haq conceded just two runs in the 18th over and dismissed Shoaib Malik for 19 but Asif quashed all hopes of an Afghanistan win.
Pakistan’s task was to handle spinners Rashid and Mujeeb Ur Rahman in their chase with the evening dew making life tough for bowlers.
Mujeeb dismissed Mohammad Rizwan (eight) while Nabi accounted for Fakhar Zaman (30) before Rashid’s wickets of Mohammad Hafeez (10) and Babar.
Earlier, Gulbadin Naib and Nabi lifted Afghanistan from a wobbly start.
Naib smashed a 25-ball 35 not out while Nabi scored an undefeated 32-ball 35 as they helped Afghanistan recover from 76-6 with an unbroken seventh wicket stand of 71 after they won the toss and batted.
All six top Afghanistan batsmen were caught playing rash shots but Nabi and Naib added 54 runs in the last five overs to give their team a fighting total.
Naib hit two fours and a six off paceman Hasan Ali to take 21 off the 18th over and the pair scored 15 in the 19th bowled by Haris Rauf.
Naib’s knock had four boundaries and a six while Nabi hit five boundaries.
Left-arm spinner Imad Wasim was the pick of Pakistan’s bowlers with 2-25, dismissing dangerous opener Hazratullah for a five-ball duck.
Najibullah Zadran (22) and Janat (15) were other contributors.
Pakistan kept the same eleven which beat India and New Zealand in their first two matches while Afghanistan were also unchanged from their first game rout of Scotland.
The top two teams from each of the two groups will qualify for the semifinals.
Asif Ali smashes Pakistan to T20 World Cup win over Afghanistan
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Asif Ali smashes Pakistan to T20 World Cup win over Afghanistan
- The Pakistani player smashed four sixes in the penultimate over to help his team achieve a hard-fought five-wicket victory
- Earlier, Afghanistan scored a fighting 147-6 in their 20 overs with Gulbadin Naib and skipper Mohammad Nabi scoring 35 each
Pakistani politicians urge dialogue with Imran Khan’s party as PM offers talks
- National Dialogue Committee group organizes summit attended by prominent lawyers, politicians and journalists in Islamabad
- Participants urge government to lift alleged ban on political activities and media restrictions, form committee for negotiations
ISLAMABAD: Participants of a meeting featuring prominent politicians, lawyers and civil society members on Wednesday urged the government to initiate talks with former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, lift alleged bans on political activities after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently invited the PTI for talks.
The summit was organized by the National Dialogue Committee (NDC), a political group formed last month by former PTI members Chaudhry Fawad Husain, ex-Sindh governor Imran Ismail and Mehmood Moulvi. The NDC has called for efforts to ease political tensions in the country and facilitate dialogue between the government and Khan’s party.
The development takes place amid rising tensions between the PTI and Pakistan’s military and government. Khan, who remains in jail on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, blames the military and the government for colluding to keep him away from power by rigging the 2024 general election and implicating him in false cases. Both deny his allegations.
Since Khan was ousted in a parliamentary vote in April 2022, the PTI has complained of a widespread state crackdown, while Khan and his senior party colleagues have been embroiled in dozens of legal cases. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last month invited the PTI for talks during a meeting of the federal cabinet, saying harmony among political forces was essential for the country’s progress.
“The prime objective of the dialogue is that we want to bring the political temperatures down,” Ismail told Arab News after the conference concluded.
“At the moment, the heat is so much that people— especially in politics— they do not want to sit across the table and discuss the pertaining issues of Pakistan which is blocking the way for investment.”
Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who heads the Awaam Pakistan political party, attended the summit along with Jamaat-e-Islami senior leader Liaquat Baloch, Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan’s Waseem Akhtar and Haroon Ur Rashid, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. Journalists Asma Shirazi and Fahd Husain also attended the meeting.
Members of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the PTI did not attend the gathering.
The NDC urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif to initiate talks with the opposition. It said after the government forms its team, the NDC will announce the names of the opposition negotiating team after holding consultations with its jailed members.
“Let us create some environment. Let us bring some temperatures down and then we will do it,” Ismail said regarding a potential meeting with the jailed Khan.
Muhammad Ali Saif, a former adviser to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, told participants of the meeting that Pakistan was currently in a “dysfunctional state” due to extreme political polarization.
“The tension between the PTI and the institutions, particularly the army, at the moment is the most fundamental, the most prominent and the most crucial issue,” Saif noted.
‘CHANGED FACES’
The summit proposed six specific confidence-building measures. These included lifting an alleged ban on political activities and the appointment of the leaders of opposition in Pakistan’s Senate and National Assembly.
The joint communique called for the immediate release of women political prisoners, such as Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi and PTI leader Yasmin Rashid, and the withdrawal of cases against supporters of political parties.
The communiqué also called for an end to media censorship and proposed that the government and opposition should “neither use the Pakistan Armed Forces for their politics nor engage in negative propaganda against them.”
Amir Khan, an overseas Pakistani businessperson, complained that frequent political changes in the country had undermined investors’ confidence.
“I came here with investment ideas, I came to know that faces have changed after a year,” Amir Khan said, referring to the frequent change in government personnel.
Khan’s party, on the other hand, has been calling for a “meaningful” political dialogue with the government.
However, it has accused the government of denying PTI members meetings with Khan in the Rawalpindi prison where he remains incarcerated.
“For dialogue to be meaningful, it is essential that these authorized representatives are allowed regular and unhindered access to Imran Khan so that any engagement accurately reflects his views and PTI’s collective position,” PTI leader Azhar Leghari told Arab News last week.
