AOPNEWS | January 6, 2016

Afghanistan defeated Zimbabwe by 2 wickets today at Sharjah Cricket Stadium (UAE) in the fifth and final match to win the ODI (one day international) series 3-2.

In today’s game, Zimbabwe won the coin toss and chose to bat first. They scored 248 runs (all out; 49.5 overs). When their turn came up, the Afghan team scored 254 runs (8 wickets; 49.4 overs).

In the other matches of the series, Afghanistan won matches 1 (by 49 runs) and 2 (by 4 wickets), then lost matches 3 (by 117 runs) and 4 (by 65 runs) to Zimbabwe. Today’s match was a necessary win for Afghanistan’s national cricket team.

With today’s win, this becomes Afghanistan’s second series win againt a Full Member. The first win was also against Zimbabwe. Gulbadin Naib was awarded the Man of the Match award for scoring 82 runs in today’s game, and Mohammad Shahzad was awarded Man of the Series award for scoring 237 runs in five innings, including hitting a century in a match winning case.

Afghanistan is not done with Zimbabwe as the two teams will meet again for two T20I matches. First match will be held in Jan 8th and the second on Jan 10th. Both matches will be played at Sharjah Stadium.