Young Afghan fast bowler Fazalhaq Farooqi won his first player of the match in the ICC World Cup 2023, and he expressed his delight at contributing to the team’s win. Fazalhaq Farooqi picked up four wickets against Sri Lanka and was honored with the Player of the Match award.
Afghanistan defeated Sri Lanka with seven wickets while chasing a small total of 242 on the batting pitch in Pune. Initial steps toward a victory were taken by pace bowler Fazalhaq Farooqi.
Pathum Nissanka started off really well while batting first, but his new opening partner was trapped by Fazalhaq Farooqi. A decent stand between skipper Kusal Mendis and Nissanka balanced the waving inning. Eventually, Mujeeb got the wicket of the Sri Lankan skipper. After that wicket, the inning never got the momentum they wanted to score big runs on the batting track of Pune.
Kusal Mendi’s wicket was the turning point of the match; that wicket never let Sri Lanka have the upper hand in the whole contest. He was playing nice, but suddenly he tried a slog sweep to Mujeeb, and the fielder at deep midfield did not make any mistake to grab the catch. Another big mistake Sri Lanka made was sanding their most experienced batter, Anglo Mathews, very down the order.
Rahmanllah Gurbaz lost his wicket in the very first over. Young batters Ibrahim Zadran and Rehmat Shah shared a solid stand of 73 runs, which helped Afghanistan chase the total easily. Afghanistan looked in control throughout the match. Firstly, their bowling did the trick, especially Fazalhaq Farooqi, and their batting never let them down in the run chase.
In the post-match presentation, Fazalhaq Farooqi expressed his happiness after being named player of the match.
“Thanks to the Almighty, it was nice to have three victories in the tournament. I am happy to have contributed to the team win. I was looking for a swing with the new ball, but I did not make any movement, so I just kept it simple, hit the right lengths, and did not want to concede boundaries, and that was how I succeeded,” said Fazalhaq Farooqi.
“We conceded too many runs in the last few overs in the last match. We put in the hard yards in the nets, bowling with accuracy and many variations. That’s exactly what we went out and did in the match today,” he added.
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