Twitter Reactions: Afghanistan thrash Zimbabwe to secure their biggest win in ODI history

The second ODI between Zimbabwe and Afghanistan resulted in favour of the visitors who beat the home team by a record-breaking margin of 232 runs at the Harare Sports Club. The Hashmatullah Shahidi-led side took a 1-0 lead with just one game left in the series.

The Afghanistan openers Sediqullah Atal and Abdul Malik started the proceedings in great fashion and formed a big partnership of 191 runs. Atal went on to score his maiden ODI century and Malik played a great hand of 84 as well. However, what could have been a total of above 300 was restricted to just 286 thanks to some disciplined bowling by 18-year-old Zimbabwean left-arm seamer Newman Nyamhuri (3/53), Trevor Gwandu (2/70), and Richard Ngarava (1/49) at the death.

The effort from the Zimbabwe bowlers was decent, however, the batters failed to make a difference in the second innings. None of the Zimbabwe batters looked threatening for the Afghanistan bowlers who kept on taking wickets at regular intervals. Naveed Zadran (3/13), AM Ghazanfar (3/9), and Fazalhaq Farooqi (2/15) made sure that none of the Zimbabwe batters could settle down and eventually bowled the team out for a paltry 54. This was the biggest win for Afghanistan in terms of runs in ODI cricket and they will be confident going into the last and final game on Saturday.

Also Read: Rashid Khan returns as Afghanistan name squad for Zimbabwe Tests

Another dark day for Zimbabwe cricket

This is the joint-lowest total for Zimbabwe in ODIs. Only two batters had a double-digit score to their name. It was a bizarre display of batting from the hosts and they would want to forget this match.

This will now make the last game of the series a do-or-die moment for Zimbabwe and they will be hoping to come out stronger in the third ODI on December 21 and draw the series.

Here is how Twitter reacted to the record-breaking performance by Afghanistan -