Muhammad Shahzad cracked a superlative 124 to lift Afghanistan to a sizeable 252 for 8 in their inconsequential Super Four game versus India in the Asia Cup 2018 in Dubai, on Tuesday (September 25).
The Nangarhar-born opener carried the batting unit on his shoulders as he accumulated 68.8% of the first 180 runs scored by Afghanistan. The significance of the right-hander's knock can be capsulised by the point that until the 26th over of the innings no other batsman had scored a boundary. Eventually, Gulbadin Naib collected a boundary via a top-edged pull off Siddarth Kaul.
During the course of the innings, Shahzad on occasions, was beaten, but each time it felt as if he had erased his memory of the previous delivery that had whistled past his bat. He took a heavy toll of especially Ravindra Jadeja and Deepak Chahar and crunched seven sixes in total. The highlight of his innings was perhaps the six he cracked off Jadeja into the downtown territories.
Shahzad also showed the required batting aptitude as he played with a degree of caution against Kuldeep Yadav. The only chance he provided was in the ninth over when he was dropped off Siddarth Kaul's bowling. He was also adjudged caught behind in the 21st over off Khaleel Ahmed. However, Shahzad took the review and replays suggested that it had come via the shoulder. Hence, the decision was overturned.
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