Before the Asia Cup and the World Cup, Pakistan has swept the three-match ODI series against Afghanistan, which is considered very important, and thus Pakistan has come to the top of the ODI rankings at the moment.
Like the first match, Pakistan won the toss and decided to bat first and the result of this match was also the same as the first match.
So far in this series, the batting team has faced more difficulties and the Afghan batting chasing the target of 269 runs could not last long in front of the Pakistani bowlers and thus Pakistan won this match by 59 runs.
Pakistan made four changes in the team today and bowlers Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah and Osama Mir were replaced by Naseem Ashraf, Wasim Jr. and Mohammad Nawaz while Iftikhar Ahmed was replaced by Saud Shakeel.
The team management is giving opportunity to as many players as possible before the World Cup to decide the final team combination and the 15-man squad for the World Cup.
This is the first time in two decades that Pakistan is going into an ODI World Cup as favourites.
Today, the openers, who usually give Pakistan a good start, were dismissed early on a difficult pitch, so Mohammad Rizwan got a chance to bat. Pakistan's middle order has been in a state of uncertainty for some time now and there have been questions about the number four position before.
However, today when Rizwan came in to bat with Babar Azam in a tough situation, both of them took a slow approach in the beginning, but with time they became aggressive to provide a good platform for the batsmen on a difficult pitch. succeeded.
Pakistan scored only 103 runs in the first 30 overs and two of its players were out, but in 20 overs, Pakistan showed aggressive batting and scored 165 runs.
While Babar and Rizwan's 60 and 67 were prominent in Pakistan's innings, Salman Ali Agha and Muhammad Nawaz played an important role in helping Pakistan reach a stable total by showing aggressive batting in the last overs.
Nawaz scored 30 off 25 balls while Agha Salman scored an unbeaten 38 off 31 balls.
On the other hand, when Afghanistan started batting, Pakistan's Faheem Ashraf bowled well in the beginning and after dismissing Rahmanullah Garbaz, who scored a century in the previous match, he also dismissed Ibrahim Zadran.
After that, the Pakistani spinners started to work their magic and with Shadab, Nawaz and Salman Ali opening, the nippy bowling reduced Afghanistan to 97 for seven.
In such a situation, Afghanistan's spin bowler Mujibur Rehman showed aggressive batting and scored 64 runs off just 37 balls with the help of five sixes and five fours. This is the highest score against Pakistan by any player batting at number eight. Apart from them, Shahidullah scored 37 runs.
Even such a perfect team will be disappointed if it doesn't win the World Cup.
Most users are happy with Pakistan's rise to the top of the ODI rankings, calling it a welcome development ahead of the Asia Cup and World Cup.
A user wrote that this was possible due to the leadership of Babar Azam who led from the front and gave consistent performances. He trusted this group of players, due to which this excellent performance of the team came out.
A user named Muaz wrote that "Pakistan is the number one ODI team with the number one batsman." This is Pakistan's best preparation before the Asia Cup and the World Cup.
Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi wrote that this whitewash has been done with complete superiority. Well done boy! The unity shown by the captain and the players is excellent. Everyone is trying to improve every situation. This is the best era of Pakistan cricket.
A user named Adil Cheema wrote that we are the defending champions of the Champions Trophy tournament and now what if we win the ODI World Cup and Asia Cup as well.
A user wrote that even such a perfect team will be disappointed if they don't win the World Cup.
