Najibullah Zadran (56) and Samiullah Shenwari (54) struck fighting half-centuries after Daniel Vettori rocked the Afghanistan middle-order with a four-wicket haul as the Asian nation posted a modest 186 against hosts New Zealand in a Pool A cricket World Cup match, here today.
Electing to bat, the team from the troubled nation was in a spot of bother, having lost six wickets with just 59 runs on the board but Zadran and Shenwari revived their innings with some gritty batting.
Left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori broke the back of the Afghanistan batting order by taking four wickets at the expense of just 18 runs and in the process the veteran New Zealand bowler touched the 300-ODI wickets milestone.
When he bowled Nawroz Mangal (27) for his second wicket in the 16th over, Vettori became the first Kiwi bowler to claim 300 wickets in ODIs.
It was Zadran, who took the Kiwi attack by the scruff of its neck, hitting a-run-ball 56, which was laced with 10 boundaries, including two sixes. It was his second One-day half-century.
Zadran departed in the 38th over when he was caught by Vettori off paceman Adam Milne but by that time he along with Shenwari had added 86 runs to put the innings back on track.
Shenwari kept going and completed his 10th ODI fifty with an extra-cover boundary off paceman Trent Boult. He was dismissed by Corey Anderson but the last-wicket pair of Hamid Hassan (16) and Shapoor Zadran (2) added 20 more runs, giving some respectability to the total.
