Asia Cup: Afghanistan revelling in familiar conditions

Asia Cup here in UAE has been around how the conditions have become as good as home conditions for India and Pakistan. However, as Afghanistan roared into the Super 4s here in the Asia Cup after beating Bangladesh on Tuesday, captain Mohammad Nabi declared this is his team's territory more than any other team. "Since the last 15 years, most of the times we have played in Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi, we know the conditions well. Sometimes in Sharjah a low total is tough to chase, that's why in a low chase the batsmen didn't throw early wickets and at the end we targeted the bowlers and won the game," Nabi said after the match before adding: "As a team in this Asia Cup we are showing that Afghanistan have quality batsmen, quality bowlers and quality fielders."

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A fine performance from the spinners and an impactful cameo from Najibullah Zadran helped Afghanistan record a 7-wicket win over Bangladesh. Afghanistan's star spinners Mujeeb Ur Rahman (3/16) & Rashid Khan (3/22) ran through a reckless Bangladesh batting line-up to restrict the opposition to 127.

Afghanistan's rise as a cricketing nation has largely depended on their unconventional spinners. Their batting has always been shaky. Nabi has pointed out that the team has laid emphasis on batting deep. "In these two games we showed we can chase totals. Earlier, oppositions used to say that Afghanistan cannot chase. But we were quite good, were not under pressure and had proper balance and hopefully we do well in the next round against big teams." After their convincing win over Sri Lanka in the tournament opener, Nabi had stressed that they took pride in