Afganistan Premier League is flying high with all sorts of T20 flavors, high scoring matches, close and last ball finishes, some explosive batting and absolute brilliant bowling spells. It was one other fantastic game which Kabul Zwanan won by two runs against Kandahar Knights in Sharjah. The game went all the way to the last ball of the game, but Knights fell short of two runs chasing a target of 174 set by Zwanan.
Batting first, Zwanan got off to a decent start though they lost a couple of wickets within the powerplay. Ronchi and Ahmadi steadied the ship with a 45 runs partnership for the third wicket. Ronchi once again failed to capitalize on the start he got and dismissed for 25. Javed Ahmadi departed after scoring a 21-ball 39. Laurie Evans once again had a brilliant stay in the middle top scoring Zwanan’s innings with a 57 off 29 balls with five sixes. He also added 48 runs with Shahidullah for the fifth wicket. Shahidullah hit three sixes in his 33 runs innings.
Knights chase didn’t start the way they wanted it to be. They lost openers within the third over with 17 runs on board and with McCullum departing for 13 runs meant the pressure is always going to be up. Karim Janat followed him without adding much to the score. Asghar and Jamal contributed in the middle overs and a quickfire 46 from Riki Wessels took the game towards an exciting finish. Knights needed 15 runs to win in the last over, however, managed only 12 with a six coming in the last ball.
Kabul managed to finish on top on a close and Kandahar remains winless in the first season of APL.
