New Zealand speedster James Neesham grabbed his maiden five-wicket haul as he ripped through the Afghanistan batting line-up to bowl them out for a paltry 172 in their World Cup match in Taunton on Saturday, 8 June.
Neesham, a batting all-rounder, rocked the Afghanistan innings by his incisive bowling and in the process returned with his career-best figures of 5/31 from his 10 overs. His earlier best was 4/42.
Neesham's pace colleague Lockie Ferguson claimed four wickets for 37 runs to throttle the Afghanistan innings.
Sent into bat, Afghanistan made a decent start with openers Hazratullah Zazai (34) and Noor Ali Zadran (31) putting on 66 runs between them. Hazratullah hit three fours in the first over bowled by Matthew Henry to show his intent.
But New Zealand hit back when Neesham induced a mistimed slog from Hazratullah, with Colin Munro taking the catch on the boundary to end the opener's innings of 34 from 28 balls in the 11th over.
Afghanistan wickets then began to fall in a heap once the openers were separated and their batsmen failed to rotate strikes.
Hashmatullah Shahidi, who top-scored with a 59 off 99 balls, played a lone hand as he did not get any support from his team-mates down the order. He hung around as long as possible to add runs to the team total. He was the last man out as Afghanistan folded their innings in 41.1 overs.
Seven Afghan batsmen scored in single digits.
Neesham had his second wicket in the form of one-down Rahmat Shah (0) in the 13th over and then dismissed captain Gulbadin Naib (4) before returning to grab two more wickets -- Mohammad Nabi (9) and Najibullah Zadran (4) – in the 24th over to complete his fiver. PTI PDS
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