Mohammed Nabi becomes first Afghanistan player to score 5000 International runs. Nabi achieved this feat during Afghanistan vs Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup 2023 tournament.
Nabi Becomes First Afghanistan Player To Score 5000 International Runs
Mohammad Nabi scored 65 runs off just 32 balls before being dismissed by M Theekshana in the 3rd ball of the 26th over.
Nabi’s fifty came in 24 balls, becoming the fastest fifty by an Afghanistan player in ODI history, overtaking Mujeeb ur Rahman’s recent record of 26-ball fifty against Pakistan last month.
Now in 259 international matches, Nabi has scored 5,011 runs at an average of 24.56, with a strike rate of 99.22. He has scored a century and 21 fifties in 238 innings, with the best score of 116.
He is Afghanistan’s leading run-scorer in international cricket, followed by Mohammad Shahzad (4,811 in 156 matches) and Asghar Afghan (4,246 in 195 matches).
Nabi played 3 Tests, 147 ODIs and 108 T20Is and scored 33, 3141, and 1803 runs respectively. He also bagged 8, 154, and 87 wickets in Test, ODI and T20I formats respectively.
Speaking on the match, Sri Lanka decided to bat first and made a brisk start by scoring 62 runs without losing wickets in the first powerplay. Afghanistan fought back by picking up three wickets for just 23 runs.
Sri Lanka finished with 292 on the board with Mendis and Asalanka’s century stand. With the target to be chased down inside 37.1 overs, Afghanistan lost both their openers cheaply.
Surprisingly, Gulbadin was promoted to the third position and set the tone with a little cameo by scoring 22 runs off 6 deliveries. M Nabi walked in at 121/4 and took four balls to get off the mark but he got going with a six and scored 65 runs off just 32 balls.
Theekshana broke the 80-run stand by removing Nabi in the 26th over. Wellalage bowled a brilliant 32nd over removing Janat and half-centurion Shahidi in the same over. Rashid took it deep and his team were one hit away. However, when Dhananjaya de Silva removed Fazalhaq Farooqi Afghan lost the match by 2 runs.
Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi opens up on losing the match against Sri Lanka and feels disappointed.
“Very disappointed about it (the loss and elimination). We fought well, we gave our 100%. Proud of the team for they way we played, the way we batted. I think in the last couple of years we played good cricket in the ODI format also. We are still learning a lot”.
“We had a lot of positives in this tournament. We are very near to the World Cup, what we did wrong here we will learn and be better for World Cup. Our crowd is always supporting us. We are thankful to them. We tried tour best to give something back to them today, we feel sorry for them”, he added.
With the defeat, Afghanistan was eliminated from the tournament while Sri Lanka will play their first Super 4 match of the Asia Cup 2023 on September 9 at R.Premadasa Stadium, Colombo.
