Zimbabwe and Afghanistan locked horns in the 5 match one day series with the touring team winning by a thrilling 3-2 margin. The matches were played from 16th October 2015 to 24th October 2015. All matches were close encounters as both teams tried to trump each other however Afghanistan was victorious at the end. All matches were played at the Queens Sports club in BULAWAYO. They were officiated by the Umpires NIGEL LLONG, RUSSEL TIFFIN and JEREMIAH MATIBIRI.
The series saw some sterling performance from WELLINGTON MASAKZADA, the slow arm orthodox whiz kid from ZIMBABWE. He scalped quick wickets of the opposition to set the home side at the back foot. Similarly, the matches also witnessed amazing scores from Mohammad NABI and NOOR ALI ZADRAN from Afghanistan. From the home side SIKANDAR RAZA was the stand out batsman who proved to be the backbone of the Zimbabwean innings. Nevertheless his efforts fell short of helping the home side to win the series. Mohammad Nabi was adjudged the man of the series for his solitary century that put the tourists in to the driver’s seat. As far as the Zimbabwe batting is concerned, SEAN WILLIAMS was the shining star who notched his first ODI century and led the home side fight back against the marauding tourists. MOHAMMAD SHEHZAAD also hit a useful knock for the AFGHANISTAN to win a cliff hanger against ZIMBABWE.
MOHAMMAD NABI, the man of the series was highest scorer with 223 runs in 5 innings at an average of 44.40 runs and an impressive strike rate of more than 85. He hit a sterling century of 116 runs to lay the ground work for victory of Afghanistan. He is closely followed by Noor ZADRAN who scored 202 with the highest score of 60 runs. Although the strike rate was just over 50, the batsman provided solidity to the inning and around him other players scored runs.
Highest scorer for the series from Zimbabwe was Sean Williams who notched up 152 runs in 5 innings. The absence of the home side batsmen in top 5 indicates why the Zimbabwe lost the series against Afghanistan.
As far as the bowling department is concerned, the home side bowler WELLINGTON MASKAZADA from Zimbabwe took 10 wickets in 5 innings at the impressive average of 18.80 runs. Moreover, he was miserly in his spells offering just over 4 runs per over to the opponents. DAWLAT ZADRAN was the stand out bowler among the tourists as he plucked 9 wickets with the best performance of 4 wickets for 22 runs. He notched an astonishing average of 16.66 in the series and forced Zimbabwe on the back foot at critical moments. With economy rate of only 3.87 he was the star for the tourist carrying them to the peak of victory. His death bowling ensured that the home side batsmen never got the opportunity to free their arms and play the shots. In a nutshell captaincy of STANIKZAI revitalized afghan team and carried them through the critical time.