ODI World Cup 2023

Afghanistan spinner Noor Ahmad creates history on his World Cup debut

Noor Ahmad was highly impressive on his ODI World Cup 2023 debut. The Chinaman spinner from Afghanistan bowled very well against Pakistan and had the game under control when he operated from his end. The youngster showed his capabilities with the ball, as he claimed some crucial wickets in the match, including that of Babar Azam. It was like a cherry on top.

Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first on a slow wicket in Chennai. The ball did not come easy to the bat. Pakistan had to manufacture their shots against a spirited bowling attack of Afghanistan. Whenever Pakistan was served with some pace, they got it easy to score some runs. But Noor bowled the way how one should bowl on a surface like Chennai.

The left-arm spinner operated on good lengths and got the ball to turn. He was always at the batters and gave little to no room for them to get relieved of the pressure created. The youngster bowled 10 overs and conceded only 49 runs and claimed 3 wickets in his spell. All the three wickets claimed by Noor were of top batters. They were all key wickets as far as Pakistan was concerned.

Noor Ahmad creates history in Afghanistan’s cricket

Noor got the wicket of Abdullah Shafique on his World Cup debut. Later on, the young spinner got the wicket of arguably the best Pakistani batter at the moment, Mohammad Rizwan. Noor dismissed Rizwan for just 6 runs, which was his first single-digit score of the tournament. Finally, Noor dismissed Babar in the final over of his spell. The youngster impressed everyone with his bowling.

At the young age of 18, Ahmad bowled a fantastic spell. Thereby, he became the Afghanistan bowler with the best bowling spell on World Cup debut. Nor surpassed the previous record of Shapoor Zadran, who had registered a fantastic spell of 2/20 against Bangladesh in the 2015 ODI World Cup. The new record now belongs to Noor, which would give him a lot of confidence going forward in the tournament.