Najibullah Zadran disappointed after not getting to bat higher up the order

The Afghanistan national team has produced quite a few explosive batsmen in the last few years and it has served it well at the international level. One of them is Najibullah Zadran, who has the reputation of hitting the long ball. He made his debut way back in 2012 against Ireland in Dublin. Ever since, he has played 64 ODIs and 50 T20Is where he has scored 1,500 and 764 runs respectively.

The southpaw has 12 tons at the highest level to go with a solitary century against Ireland earlier this year in Dehradun, the Afghans’ adopted home ground in India. His T20I strike-rate of 140.95 is a testament to his power-hitting prowess. However, the surprising aspect is that the left-handed batter has mostly batted at number six, seven and even eight in the batting lineup.

And Najibullah doesn’t like it by any means. Recently, he mentioned that he has been constantly requesting the skipper and the team management to promote him higher up the order. But the 26-year-old from Logar is yet to taste success after four to five years of trying.

“I am telling to the captain & coaching staff from the last 4 to 5 years that I want to bat up the order 3rd or 4th position as the current batting position is not my preferred one, but yet to get it,” Najibullah was quoted as saying in a TV interview as per journalist M.Ibrahim Momand.

“I am telling to the captain & coaching staff from the last 4 to 5 years that i want to bat up the order 3rd or 4th position as the current batting position is not my preferred one,but yet to get it”Says hitting master @iamnajibzadran in his latest interview with a TV. pic.twitter.com/ESNUCJDTw2

— M.ibrahim Momand (@IbrahimReporter) September 1, 2019

Najibullah Zadran doing well in the World Cup

Najibullah lately was a part of Afghanistan’s campaign in the 2019 World Cup in England and Wales. Out of nine games, he played in eight of them. Yet he became their leading run-scorer of the tournament, having racked up 230 runs at an average of 28.75 and a strike-rate of 88.80. He made a shoddy start as he could only manage a couple of runs in the warm-up fixtures.

But he came into his own in the main round and piled a well-compiled half-century against Australia at the County Ground in Bristol. Thereafter, he got a couple of 40s against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Apart from the match versus New Zealand, he got into the double figures on every other instance.

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