Afghanistan and Oman claimed the final two places at next year’s ICC World Twenty20 in India with victories over Papua New Guinea and Namibia in the last-ditch play-offs in Dublin.
The Afghans beat the team from the Asia-Pacific region by six wickets at Malahide while the Omanis were too strong for the men from Africa, eventually winning by five wickets at the same venue to reach their first-ever ICC World Twenty20.
After a difficult couple of weeks for Afghanistan, the front-line bowlers of Mohamed Nabi, Dawlat Zadran and, in particular, Shapoor Zadran, turned up the heat when it really mattered and made PNG’s batsmen suffer early at Malahide.
Shapoor took two wickets, including the crucial one of Tony Ura, and conceded just nine runs off his four overs as PNG stumbled to 37-4 and 55-5. That it finally made 127-6 off 20 overs was thanks to some rear-guard action from Charles Amini, who made an unbeaten 37, and Norman Vanua, who hit a vital 22 not out off 10 balls.
Chasing 128, there might have been a couple of anxious twitches in the Afghan dugout when star turn Mohamed Shahzad was out first ball of the innings, caught behind off the bowling of Vanua.
But Nawroz Mangal and captain Asghar Stanakzai consolidated for the Afghans. Mangal carried his bat and finished unbeaten on 65 off 56 balls.
In the second game, despite losing Gerrie Snyman for a duck, Namibia’s batsmen had put Oman’s opening bowlers to the sword during the powerplay, adding 66 for the second wicket thanks to Stephen Baard and Raymond van Schoor. But Oman came right back into it after that, slowing the run-rate right down and taking wickets at regular intervals.Munis Ansari (3-23) was the pick but Aamir Kaleem’s 2-12 and Ajay Lalcheta’s 2-26 were also important to keep Namibia down to 148-9 off 20 overs. Khawar Ali (19) and Zeeshan Maqsood (28) got off to a solid start for Oman, putting on 41 for the first wicket and then Jatinder Singh (33) continued the good work. Zeeshan made an unbeaten 51 and scooped the man-of-the-match trophy in the process.