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Afghanistan Humble Hong Kong Inside Two Days

Afghanistan thrashed Hong Kong by an innings and 173 runs inside two days as the hosts who went into the match confident of giving the Afghans a game were humbled.

Afghanistan Captain Ashgar Stanikzai (58*) and Rahmat Shah (34*) resumed at the crease with Afghanistan already holding a 128 run lead going into the second days play (270-2). Stanikzai bought up an excellent century with another towering 6 over the leg side as Hong Kong were made to pay dearly in dropping him the evening before.

Shah also made his way through to a well compiled 50 as the lead grew past 200. Ehsan Khan made the breakthrough with Shah being well caught at long off by Waqas Khan for 57 (363-3). Nizakat Khan was bought on to bowl and had instant success with Stanikzai being well caught by Anshuman Rath for 125 off 129 balls (367-4).

Mohammad Nabi and Nasir Jamal set out after the lunch break with positive intent with Nabi in particular taking full value of the short straight boundaries in bringing up a superb half century off just 39 balls including five 6s.

Nabi fell for 63 off 44 balls with Kyle Christie picking up his first wicket of the innings and with that the declaration came with Afghanistan finishing on 465-5 (lead of 323 on first innings).

Matt Stiller and Chris Carter returned to the crease with Hong Kong 323 behind on first innings and 57 overs left in the day. Dawlat Zadran got Afghanistan off to the best possible start by dismissing Carter first ball of the innings.

Dawlat proceeded to bowl with hostility and pace and was rewarded with the wicket of Hong Kong captain Babar Hayat (18) courtesy of a top edged pull to Nasir Jamal at mid-wicket. Stiller moments after being struck two painful blows by Zadran became Rashid Khan’s firstwicket of the innings stumped for 4. Nizakat Khan Retired hurt on 10 after a blow to his hand fending off another fast short pitched delivery from the rampaging Zadran and at this point Hong Kong were teetering on 39-3. Rath and Waqas Khan guided Hong Kong through to Tea with no further loss finishing on 56-3 a deficit of 267.

Nabi removed Waqas Khan immediately after tea and Rashid Khan once again came to the fore dismissing the returning Nizakat Khan lbw for 26. (88-5). Anshuman Rath continued to bat with maturity and fought hard against the Afghanistan spin attack whilst wickets continued to tumble at the other end.

Rath bought up a deserved half century and remained undefeated on 59 when Kyle Christie became the last wicket to fall. Hong Kong were bowled out in their second innings for 150 and Afghanistan were comprehensive winners by an innings and 173 runs.

Rashid Khan (AFG) was declared as Man of the Match for his figures of 5-65 and 2-45.

Afghanistan 465 for 5 dec (Stanikzai 125, Ahmadi 108) beat Hong Kong 142 (Hayat 39, Rashid 5-65) & 150 (Rath 59*, Zahir 4-16) by an innings and 173 runs.

Additional reporting and images: HK Cricket

Afghanistan Dominate Day 1 in Mong Kok

Afghanistan dominated the first days play of the four day ICC Intercontinental Cup match at Tin Kwong Road dismissing Hong Kong for 142 and ending the day 128 runs ahead with 8 wickets in hand.

Hong Kong captain Babar Hayat won the toss and elected to bat first on a wicket that looked easy paced and good for batting. Kyle Christie and Haroon Arshad made their debut in the competition and received their cap from Head Coach Simon Cook before the start of play.

Stiller and Carter opened the batting for Hong Kong with Stiller the first to go caught behind by Zazai off Dawlat Zadran for 6 leaving the hosts 21-1. Carter and Hayat set out to rebuild the innings and Carter looked solid whilst playing some elegant strokes through the offside. Rashid Khan entered the attack and made the second breakthrough with Carter being trapped lbw for 21 (41-2).

Hayat and Nizakat Khan put together a 43 run partnership with Hayat showing his intent by launching 2 huge sixes off Rashid that landed in the nearby housing estate and police station. Rashid wasn’t to be outdone and came back well to remove Hayat lbw for 39 (84-3). The Hong Kong middle order then succumbed to some excellent spin bowling from Rashid and Nabi. 84-3 soon became 97-7 and Hong Kong had lost all of their earlier momentum. Waqas Khan and Waqas Barkat fought hard to try and bring some respectability to the score with both players making 23. Kyle Christie was last man out for 2 as Hong Kong crumbled to a dismal 142 all out in just 47 overs. Rashid Khan (5-65) and Dawlat Zadran (3-15) were the standout bowlers for Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s opening pair of Ahmadi and Ihsanullah strode out to the middle and from the offset and made their intent known with some excellent strokes through the offside. Hayat tried different bowling combinations but all to no avail as the 50 and 100 partnership were bought up with boundaries flowing down the ground and through the offside field. Ihsanullah and Ahmadi both bought up their half centuries before Ihsanullah was caught by the captain Hayat off the bowling of Rath for a well-made 63 (124-1). The hard hitting Shah arrived at the crease and set his stall out by striking two 6s in his first 5 balls. Afghanistan passed Hong Kong’s first innings of 142 with 9 wickets in hand and were well set going into the final hour of play on Day 1.

Javed Ahmadi went on to make an excellent century and was unfortunate to become the second wicket of the innings when Kyle Christie managed to get a finger end on one off his own bowling which left Ahmadi short of his ground at the non-strikers crease for a well-made 108 off 113 balls (203-2). Afghanistan captain Ashgar Stanikzai ended day 1 with a flourish and made his way to an aggressive 38 ball half century. Hong Kong will be frustrated with 2-3 dropped catches late in the day, a day which went perfectly for the visitors as they closed on 270-2 with Stanikzai 58 and Shah 34 the not out batsmen.

Hong Kong v Afghanistan – 4 Day Game
Date: 20-23 October, 2017
Venue: Tin Kwong Road Recreation Ground
Tickets: Free

Additional reporting/images: HK Cricket

Disappointing Hong Kong Out With a Whimper

After a bright start Hong Kong’s middle order failed again as Afghanistan bossed their way to second successive win, this time by six wickets, to set up a knockout match against Zimbabwe to determine the Group B qualifier for the World Twenty20 Super 10s.

Hong Kong won the toss and, opting to bat, raced away to 40 without loss before losing the plot as four wickets fell in four overs – mostly to lose shots. Although Mark Chapman could do little about a superb yorker from Gulbadin Naib. Hong Kong needing to post a good score to stay in the tournament just couldn’t find the boundary rope and struggled to reach 116 for 6 – mainly thanks to Anshuman Rath’s unbeaten 31-ball 28. A total that was 40 short of what Tanwir Afzal, the captain, hoped to get.

Hong Kong’s slim chance was to pick-up early wickets, that that didn’t happen and the game was reduced to a cakewalk for Afghanistan who won with two overs to spare.

Ryan Campbell, who struggled on his Hong Kong debut two nights ago, opened with a ‘high-risk, high returns’ approach and muscled five early boundaries. But Nabi’s slow turn beat him as he attempted a sweep and the ball bounced back onto the stumps. Two balls later Babar Hayat’s disappointing tournament with the bat continued as he was deceived by the flight and chipped a simple catch to cover.

Rashid Khan, the skiddy legspinner made an impact immediately with his mix of googlies and sliders as Hong Kong’s batsmen suddenly started playing for demons that weren’t there. The slow bowlers scythed through the middle order, with the continuous loss of wickets making run-scoring difficult.

Amidst the carnage, Rath nudged his way along playing with soft hands, and using deft touches to push his team to 116 for 6. Nabi was the pick of the bowlers, his 4 for 20 the best figures by an Afghan bowler in T20Is.

Noor Ali Zadran’s straight boundary off the first ball of Afghanistan’s innings heralded the start of the end. With little swing or nip off the surface, the pacemen resorted to gentle off-cutters. Afzal then turned to spin in the hope of doing to Afghanistan what Nabi and Rashid Khan did to them. But the batsmen’s application thwarted their designs as Afghanistan scored 43 in the first six overs. Overconfidence got the better of Shahzad, who holed out to long-off for a 40-ball 41 to give Campbell his first T20 wicket. Nabi and Noor Ali then milked the bowling before an ungainly slog ended Nabi’s stay. Two balls later, Noor Ali was run-out courtesy Hayat’s flat throw from the deep.

The three wickets in quick time did very little to lift Hong Kong, whose muted celebrations were a giveaway that it wouldn’t really affect the big picture as Afghanistan completed an easy chase and knocked a hugely disappointing Hong Kong out of the World Twenty20 tournament.

Afghanistan 119 for 4 (Shahzad 41, Noor Ali 35) beat Hong Kong 116 for 6 (Rath 28, Campbell 27, Nabi 4-20) by six wickets

source: ICC, cricinfo

Hong Kong Crash to Third Asia Cup Defeat

A disappointing Asia Cup Qualifying Tournament ended with a third defeat for Hong Kong against Afghanistan by 66 runs in Dhaka. The bowlers have leaked runs and the batsmen, Babar Hayat apart, have not found any sort of form on what have been pretty good batting wickets.

Captain Tanwir Afzal won the toss and chose to bowl first, but some costly errors in the field saw Afghanistan post 7-178 – including 32 from the penultimate over.

In response, Hong Kong got off to a great start to be 0-55 after 6 overs but the innings then fell apart. Hong Kong lost 9-33 to be all out for 112 – resulting in a 66-run loss. Anshuman Rath top scored with 41 off 38 balls.

Babar Hayat looked dangerous again but fell for just 18 off 16 balls. The pattern of good starts that went unfinished a sore point for captain Tanwir Afzal when summing up the tour. “The middle order batsmen made the same mistakes in all three games and we didn’t learn from it and that’s disappointing,” Afzal said. “We are a better team than this and we have a couple of players who were missing coming back for the World T20 so hopefully we can prove that.”

In the field, Hong Kong had restricted Afghanistan to 6-138 after 17 overs, but 40 runs off the last three saw the score blow out. Aizaz Khan was the main destroyer and finished with 3-38, while 18-year-old Tanveer Ahmed impressed on debut taking 1-27 from four overs at the death.

“As you could see, Tanveer is a future star of Hong Kong cricket,” Afzal said. “He was very impressive with the ball in death bowling and he just does the basics really well. Everybody is really disappointed with these matches but we will come back strong and do Hong Kong proud at the World Cup.”

Hong Kong will arrive in Mumbai tomorrow tonight to begin a two-week training camp ahead of their World T20 opener against Zimbabwe on March 8.

Afghanistan 7-178 (Aizaz Khan 3-38) def Hong Kong 112 (Anshuman Rath 41 Kinchit Shah 29) by 66 runs

Source: HK Cricket Association

Hong Kong at the Asia Cup 2016

The Asian Cricket Council is holding the Asia Cup 2016 in Dhaka, Bangladesh from 24th February to 6th March 2016. The 13th edition of the Asia Cup will be the first played using the T20 format.

Hong Kong made their first appearance in the tournament in 2004 and reached the group stages in the 2004 and 2008 tournaments.

Along with hosts Bangladesh and Asia Cup 2014 winners Sri Lanka, the tournament will include Pakistan, India and a qualifier. The qualifier will be determined through a qualifying round (T20I) scheduled to be played from 19th to 22nd February 2016 in Bangladesh.

Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Oman and UAE will compete in the qualifying round. The winner of qualifier will move to main round to play against the four Asian Test playing nations.

Qualifier Match Schedule
Venue: KSOAS, Fatullah
Format: 20 overs a side

Hong Kong v Oman
Date: 19 February 2016
HK Time: 8pm

Hong Kong v UAE
Date: 21 February 2016
HK Time: 8pm

Hong Kong v Afghanistan
Date: 22 February 2016
HK Time: 8pm

Hong Kong Squad
Tanwir Afzal (Captain), Adil Mehmood, Aizaz Khan, Anshuman Rath, Babar Hayat, Christopher Carter, Haseeb Amjad, Kinchit Shah, Mark Chapman, Nadeem Ahmed, Ninad Shah, Nizakat Khan, Tanveer Ahmed, Waqas Barkat, Waqas Khan.

T20: Hong Kong Beat Afghanistan by Four Wickets

Hong Kong cruised to a comfortable four-wicket win after chasing down 163 in the last over against Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi. Tanwir Afzal blitzed a 22-ball 42, an innings that featured two fours and three sixes, to swing the momentum in Hong Kong’s favour after they were stuttering at 89 for 4 in the 12th over.

Hong Kong’s chase began slowly and the team soon also lost Kinchit Shah in the third over for 2. Though they managed to stitch substantial partnerships thereafter through brisk contributions from Babar Hayat (35 off 18), Mark Chapman (22) and Nizakat Khan (26), frequent wickets meant Afghanistan were still in with a shot.

Afzal and Nizakat added 55 for the fifth wicket in just 30 balls as the match drifted away from Afghanistan, and an equation of 24 off the last four overs was easily achieved in the end with two balls to spare. Karim Sadiq, Aftab Alam and Rokhan Barakzai picked up two wickets apiece.

Earlier, Afghanistan lost both their openers within the first four overs after choosing to bat. Asghar Stanikzai (51) then struck a counterattacking half-century and combined with Sadiq (22) and Samiullah Shenwari (34) in stands of 34 and 63 respectively to set up a strong platform for a late surge. Shafiqullah provided the required impetus late in the innings with a 16-ball 30 to lift Afghanistan to a score of 162 for 6.

Additional reporting: Cricinfo