Dockrell stars in rain-affected game to hand Ireland series win vs Afghanistan

Ireland sealed the fivematch T20I series against Afghanistan with a thrilling rainaffected sevenwicket win in the decider match at StormontAfter winning the toss and electing to bowl first Ireland had an excellent start thanks to an opening burst from Player of the Match pacer Mark AdairAfter a quiet first over from Josh Little Hazratullah Zazai looked to have got Afghanistan moving with two consecutive boundaries the first streakily skewed past point and the second smoked through the coversHowever Adair struck back enticing the explosive opener to miscue high into the air with Simi Singh taking the catch at midoff Three balls later he claimed another Rahmanullah Gurbaz poking outside off and edging through to the keeperLittle snuck through a second quiet over before Adair struck again once more hitting back after a firstball boundary This time he was cut through point by Ibrahim Zadran before bouncing out the No3 a cueend flying to short third man where Barry McCarthy claimed an excellent diving catchAfghanistan found themselves 263 after four overs and took their time to rebuild The ball only reached the fence once in the next five overs and that came courtesy of an overthrow reaching the boundary With nine overs gone Afghanistan were 423 scoring at a tick over 45 runs per overThe tourists changed tack as Simi Singh was introduced with Usman Ghani previously becalmed on eight off 21 smashing 20 runs off the 10th over of the innings with a pair each of fours and sixes giving Afghanistan a muchneeded boostAndrew Balbirnie turned to Little in pursuit of a breakthrough and the leftarmer obliged Two short balls dismissed Najibullah Zadran and Mohammad Nabi in the space of two balls with Lorcan Tucker completing the catches on both occasions The second was a special effort with the keeper running forward and taking a onehanded grab inches from the turf to see off the Afghanistan captainAlso Read Someone will have to make a personal sacrifice for KL Rahul to open in Zimbabwe series ManjrekarOnce again Afghanistan rebuilt putting on 29 in the next four overs to lay the platform for the last five overs However it was at this point that the rain fell and with the score reading 955It left Ireland needing 56 runs in seven overs for a series win Mujeeb Ur Rahman immediately created an impact as he trapped Andrew Balbirnie lbw and conceded just six runs from the third overRashid Khan was introduced and tempted Paul Stirling with a tossedup delivery The opener took the bait but successfully so smashing high over longon When Lorcan Tucker shuffled and smashed the first ball of Mujeebs next over up and over the legsideBut the dismissal of Stirling brought Afghanistan back into the match He holed out off Mujeeb having become the fourth man in history to the milestone of 3000 T20I runsHarry Tector punched his first ball a low full toss through the covers for four to ease the Irish nerves but the dismissal of Tucker mistiming a slog sweep off Rashid put the game back in the balanceSome ones and twos brought the requirement down to five needed from four Ireland eventually won the match and series as a sweetly timed George Dockrell pull shot found the fence making the result a foregone conclusionDockrell was named Player of the Series for his unbeaten batting exploits having scored 141 runs across five innings without being dismissedBrief Scores Afghanistan 955 in 15 overs Usman Ghani 44 not out Mark Adair 316 Joshua Little 214 lost to Ireland 563 in 64 overs Paul Stirling 16 Lorcan Tucker 14 Mujeeb Ur Rahman 217 by seven wickets Target revised to 56 off 7 overs due to rainThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever