Afghanistan, on Friday, defeated Pakistan by 6 wickets in the opener of the T20 series being played in Sharjah, with the former making history as it was its first international win against the latter.

The Afghan team achieved the target by 6 wickets and more than two overs to spare after restricting Pakistan to a total of 92.

In the beginning, national team captain Shadab Khan won the toss and decided to bat.

Saim Ayub, who made his T20 debut, opened the innings with Mohammad Haris, but Haris was dismissed after scoring 6 runs for a total score of 17.

Later, Abdullah Shafiq also went lbw without scoring any runs. Saeem Ayub scored 17 runs and was pinned by Naveen-ul-Haq, while Tayyab Tahir was caught by Rashid Khan for 16 runs.

Aggressive Azam Khan was also caught out without scoring any runs and thus half the team returned to the pavilion with a total of 41 runs causing fears of Pakistan breaking its lowest runs record of 74 in 2012 against Australia.

However, captain Shadab Khan scored 12, Faheem Ashraf and Naseem Shah scored 2 runs each, and Imad Wasim was bowled for 18 runs.

From the Afghan side, Fazal Haq Farooqui, Mujib ur Rehman, and Muhammad Nabi scored 2, 2 while Azmatullah, Naveen, and Rashid Khan dismissed one player each.

Chasing Pakistan’s target of 93 runs, the first wicket of the Afghan cricket team fell when Ibrahim Zadran was dismissed by Ehsanullah on his first ball in the debut match. Thus, he became the second bowler of Pakistan to take a wicket on the first ball in the debut match.

Ehsanullah also dismissed Gulbuddin Naib on the third ball of the first over. After that, Naseem Shah took the wicket of Rahmanullah Garbaz and Imad Wasim also bowled Karim Jannat.

After the fall of 4 wickets, Mohammad Nabi and Najeebullah Zadran supported the faltering batting and led the Afghan team to victory against Pakistan.

The Afghan team achieved the target in the 18th over with the loss of 4 wickets and this is Afghanistan’s first victory against Pakistan in T20I. After this win, the Afghan team has taken a 0-1 lead in the series.

Mohammad Nabi scored 38 runs and Najibullah Zadran scored 17 runs for Afghanistan. Pakistan’s Ehsanullah took 2 wickets, and Naseem Shah and Imad Wasim took one wicket each.

On Friday, 4 players made their debut from Pakistan, including Saeem Ayub, Tayyab Tahir, Ehsanullah, and Zaman Khan.