'Quality' Afghanistan ready for Asia Cup heavyweights

Afghanistan is ready for the big guns after they became the first team to qualify for the Super Four stage of the Asia Cup following victories over Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. "As a team in this Asia Cup we are showing that Afghanistan have quality batsmen, quality bowlers and quality fielders," said all-rounder Nabi after Afghanistan thrashed Bangladesh by seven wickets on Tuesday. "In these two games we showed we can chase totals. Earlier opposition used to say that Afghanistan cannot chase. "But we were quite good (in the two chases), were not under pressure and had proper balance and hopefully we do well in the next round against big teams," added the 37-year-old. Afghanistan's victory over Bangladesh in Sharjah put them into the next round of the six-nation Twenty20 tournament.

Read AlsoAsia Cup 2022, Bangladesh vs Afghanistan Highlights: Spinners, Najibullah Zadran take Afghanistan to Super 4s

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.

Najibullah Zadran smashed six sixes in his 17-ball unbeaten 43 chasing down a target of 128 with nine balls to spare, accompanied by Ibrahim Zadran (42). The two stood out after spinners Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Rashid Khan took three wickets each to flatten the fancied Bangladesh batting in a tournament which acts as a tune-up to the T20 World Cup in October-November in Australia. Fast bowler Fazalhaq Farooqi starred in his team's opening win against Sri Lanka last week with figures of 3-11 and Nabi said the team has covered all the