Pakistan vs Afghanistan Final T20I LIVE Score: PAK beat AFG by 75 runs to win Tri-series in Sharjah

I think it was a kind of wicket where 140 was going to be challenging. We knew it was going to be tough for them. He has been outstanding with the bat, ball and in the field. I can go to him when we are in tough situation. We will play two spinners whenever we need. We assess the conditions and playing two spinners worked for us.

That was the kind of total. The wicket was there to chase. We didn't play the brand of cricket we wanted to play. We lost five wickets in the powerplay. I wasn't expecting it to spin so much. It proved to be a different wicket. In T20 cricket you hardly have any time to come back. We got a chance to understand the conditions before the Asia Cup.

The plan was very simple. We knew this pitch was difficult to bat on. We had to be discipline with our bowling. We hit the right areas and found success. I got spin on the first two balls, I realised the pace on which I had to bowl. I had to keep the pads and stumps in play. I am feeling good. I have control and that has given me the confidence. Just trying to keep things simple and trying to execute. We need partnership at that time. We very under pressure but we recovered and got to 140.

Well, Muqeem has got the final two wickets, and in the end, Afghanistan disappointed with their chase here. It was a chasable total at least a total which Afghanistan could have gotten close but in the end, Nawaz scalped five wickets and got the job done. It is a massive confidence booster for Pakistan going into the Asia Cup, and as per Afghanistan, they have things to sort out before the marquee event.

Nawaz has picked up a five-wicket haul here, and it is Rashid Khan who is the batter who has fallen. It was a wide one, and Rashid Khan threw his bat at it, and the ball went high in the air, and there was a collision between the keeper and skipper Agha, and the latter finally took the catch. Nawaz is done with the spell, he is probably going to be man of the match at the end of this contest.

Afghanistan has lost two more wickets since our last update, and it is Mohammad Nawaz who has managed to pick up both the wickets first, it was leg-before, and then it was Omarzai tried to cut the ball and edged it to the keeper. Afghanistan has lost four wickets and is in a lot of trouble at the moment.

Abrar took the new ball from the other and slipped in an expensive over after Shaheen's good over first up. From Pakistan's persepctive, they need to be careful, this is the partnership that might take the game away from them. As per the wicket, Gurbaz once again fell for a low score chasing a total and fell to a cutter edging one to the keeper.

Shaheen Shah Afridi has taken the new ball for Pakistan as expected. Defences like this, the skipper has to get his bowling changes and field placements spot on; there is no margin for error. Pakistan does have two top-class spinners and a gun pacer in Shaheen. The usage of these three options will decide the fate of the game. As we update Shaheen picked up first wicket.

Just wanted to keep it simple and hit the right length, that worked for me. The wicket looks good for spinners, hitting the right length will give you good results. We just need to have a good powerplay, we can chase it. This is the best preparation for me ahead of the Asia Cup. We (Afghan spinners) eat batsmen for breakfast (laughs).

That's the end of the 20 overs, and it is quite an underwhelming total for Pakistan in the end. However, they have history on their side so far in the series; no team has chased runs, and although this is not a massive total, if the bowlers pick up early wickets, Pakistan can definitely make a match out of this one.

Salman Agha squeezed a couple of sixes,, and in his attempt to get his third, he perished. Rashid Khan has picked up three wickets here,, and he has been quite smart with his variations in the game today. Pakistan batters could have managed both Noor and Rashid better and picked up on the finger spinners and paces; however, not meant to be today.

From a similar situation, Pakistan pulled off a very good final five overs in the previous game against the UAE, but that day they had Fakhar, who was set. Although today Salman Agha has stayed here for a bit of time, he is still not set yet, and most importantly, he has to play through the overs of spin and calculate which bowlers to pick and attack.

Since our last update, Pakistan has lost another wicket, and it batter set is Fakhar Zaman. The batter was trapped in front of the wicket of Rashid Khan. This is bad for Pakistan, all the hard work both Zaman and Ayub have done is gone in vain. Two new batters are at the crease, and both have to start here all over again.

Noor Ahmed has come into the attack, and he has picked up the wicket of Saim Ayub. It was a soft dismissal from the batter in the end, where he tried to push the ball and just ended up chipping it in the air to Rashid Khan straight at mid-off. Salman Ali Agha has come into the middle, he, along with Fakhar, needs to build a partnership here.

This is a good start for Pakistan; both Saim and Fakhar have played this quite cleverly. In the games gone by, they tried to over-attack and kept losing wickets, but today they respected the good balls and the conditions, and they are reaping the rewards. The challenge now for them is to continue with this momentum and lay a solid foundation for hitters to follow.

This has been quite uncharacteristic of both Saim Ayub and Fakhar Zaman. Both these players are quite aggressive by nature, but they have played it well here. They have given themselves a chance to see how the pitch is playing. We have seen in the past how dangerous both these players can be when they get adjusted to the pace of the wicket and are going at full flow.

Based on the last two years, we’ve seen that Dubai has been avoiding grass because of the extra usage that the stadium has had. Now, looking at the ground last two weeks, they have got a grass cover at the moment. So I believe that the pitches will not behave as they have for the last two years. The pitches should have better carry to the keeper and should have better pace onto the bat.

In 2007, I was appointed by the ICC to help design and build the Dubai International Cricket Stadium and also the ICC Cricket Academy, along with the famous (Australian cricketer) Rod Marsh. We had this opportunity to dream, do whatever we wanted to. So, we built the ICC Academy, importing soils from around the world. We brought 360 tons of soil from Australia, including Gabba (Brisbane) and WACA (Perth) soil. We also brought 360 tons of soil from Pakistan and 150-180 tons from England. We were supported well by the board at the time, which included Malcolm Speed, who was our (ICC) CEO.

The Dubai International Cricket Stadium had seven pitches. We used the Pakistan soil for that stadium, knowing that we’d be hosting Asian cricket, so we thought it would be best to have Asian soil. Once I built the field with a small team, we then recruited staff. We introduced computers so the staff could follow patterns of the climate to follow the procedures. And being in the UAE, of course, the climate is quite predictable. It gets hotter and hotter as you go deep into the extreme summer, the June, July, August period. And then you have your two changing seasons of your autumn and your spring, which is probably the period that’s challenging the most because of the winds with the dust storms.

Click here to read article