Can Scotland hold out for an I-Cup draw against Afghanistan?
Mike Stanger is bemused by Afghanistan's approach to winning the Intercontinental Cup game against Scotland - and finds their priorities warped by individual influences...
On Day 3 of this curious ICC Intercontinental Cup match at Citylets Ayr, Afghanistan resumed their second innings at 0-0, having 'survived' one over from Dewald Nel on the evening of Day 2. The fact that Afghanistan were batting at all was what bemused the Scots, not to mention the Scottish scribes including yours truly. With a first-innings lead of 296, most teams would enforce the follow-on. But Afghanistan are not 'most teams', as their fairytale rise from nowhere to the top half of the Associate tree has shown.
So the question on Day 3 was: when would Afghanistan declare, and would their judgement be designed to invite Scotland to go for victory, or did they have an overwhelming confidence in their ability to bowl out their hosts cheaply for a second time?
They certainly eschewed the latter option, and batted on beyond tea, not because they didn;t have enough runs on the board, but to allow their wicket-keeper, Mohammad Ashraf, to complete his century. It wasn't even his highest first-class score in six matches - that was 213* - so this was pure individual indulgence, making as little cricketing sense as not enforcing the follow-on. The Afghans declared at 249 for five, giving Scotland a target of 546 to win in the space of six minutes short of four two-hour sessions - approximately 130 overs of play, with the weather more-or-less guaranteed fine.
Scotland had stuck to their bowling task quite well, with Dewald Nel getting Noor Ali to edge to a good catch by Simon Smith with the score on 64. Karim Sadiq followed soon after, bowled through the gate by the magic Majid Haq, once again combining well with skipper Gordon Drummond to control the run-rate. When the strangely quiescent Richie Berrington came on as fifth bowler, he immediately had Mangal, the Afghan captain, also caught behind. The fourth and fifth wickets arrived in quick succession either side of the 200-mark, Haq inducing Stanikzai into a big hit to New at deep mid-wicket, while Moneeb Iqbal skied a simple catch to Berrington. The declaration didn't come for another 40 runs.
The Scots were clearly never going to go for such an absurd target, representing 73 runs an hour, or 1.2 runs per ball. So their principal ambition should be to hold out for a draw and deny Afghanistan the additional 14 points that would take them leapfrogging both Kenya and Scotland to the top of the I-Cup table. This is an altogether strange way to play the game for most of Scotland's young squad, and the key is not runs but minutes - as many of the as possible - and wickets - as few of them as possible. At the same time, you can't expect batsmen not to take whatever runs come their way.
Watts and Flannigan opened with admirable phlegm, and held out for the first hour, scoring 31, before Watts was clean bowled by the iconic Hamid Hassan in his first over. But Hassan was clearly not fully fit, and he quickly tired, allowing the precocious 57-run partnership between Flannigan and Ewan Chalmers to flourish at his and left-arm seamer Shappor Zadran's expense with a flurry of fours.
At this point, wise spectator heads uttered worrying noises about runs not being important, and did these youngsters appreciate the priorities? With just 15 minutes to go to stumps came the answer, as Flannigan lost his defensive concentration against and was bowled by off-spinner Mohammad Nabi, whose spell returned the remarkable figures of 7-7-0-1!
Flannigan remonstrated with himself all the way back to the pavilion, and well he might: he had allowed Afghanistan to have a go at a new batsman, with just three overs of the day's play remaining. Luckily, Richie Berrington looked more determined than he has for some matches, punching a brilliant straight drive to the boundary in his first over. Withe Chalmers 38* at the other end, they will have to start again from scratch on the final morning, playing the match out session-by-session. It would help if the end of the morning's first session saw these two still at the crease. That might make the rest of the team believe they can achieve one of the great cricketing escapes of all time.
Day 3 Scoreboard summary: Afghanistan 435ao and 249-5dec (Shahzad 105*); Scotland 139ao and 95-2 (Flannigan 32, Chalmers 37*)
- You can follow events on the final live on Cricket Scotland TV, available on the Cricket Scotland website home page, featuring exclusive live streamed video coverage from the Citylets Ayr ground. Coverage of the first three days of the match attracted viewings of 2,500 - 3,500 - and 5,000+ respectively.
