{"id":25541,"date":"2012-02-10T02:54:33","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T21:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/?p=25541"},"modified":"2012-02-10T02:54:33","modified_gmt":"2012-02-09T21:54:33","slug":"pakistan-and-afghanistans-maiden-odi-match-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/2012\/02\/10\/pakistan-and-afghanistans-maiden-odi-match-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan and Afghanistan’s maiden ODI match today"},"content":{"rendered":"

SHARJAH<\/strong>: Pakistan and Afghanistan play a historic first-ever one-day international between the two countries here on Friday with both captains vowing to make the game a memorable one.<\/p>\n

“It is a very important game for both countries and we will try to make the occasion memorable with some quality cricket,” Pakistan captain Misbah-ul Haq said.<\/p>\n

“It is important for countries like Afghanistan to play a top team which will help them improve and we are going to play with our full strength team as they have some good players.”<\/p>\n

Friday’s match in Sharjah Stadium — which holds the world record of staging the most one-day internationals with 201 — is fitting because most of the Afghan players learnt the game in Pakistan while staying as refugees after the Soviet invasion of their country in 1979.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan captain Nawroz Mangal thanked Pakistan for giving them chances.<\/p>\n

“We thank Pakistan for allowing us to play this one-day and also giving us opportunity to play in their domestic competitions which raised our confidence,” said Mangal, who led Afghanistan to one-day status.<\/p>\n

“It is a history making match against a top team like Pakistan and we will try our best to put up a good fight in a contest which is a big challenge for us,” said the 27-year-old Mangal, an off-spin bowler.<\/p>\n

Mangal said his team had prepared well for Pakistan’s spinners Saeed Ajmal and Abdul Rehman who were behind the 3-0 destruction of England in their three-Test series: Ajmal finished with 24 wickets while Rehman took 19.<\/p>\n

“We have prepped well for Pakistan’s spin duo and I am confident my batsmen will do their best,” said Mangal, adding that paceman Hamid Hassan, who has 24 wickets in 14 one-day internationals, will miss the match through knee injury.<\/p>\n

They still have Mohammad Nabi, an off-spinner who took five wickets while playing for an ICC Combined XI against England last month and wicket-keeper batsman Mohammad Shahzad who scored 51 and 74 in the same match.<\/p>\n

Pakistan will be further boosted by the return of allrounder Shahid Afridi who will add variety to team’s spin attack.<\/p>\n

Mangal hoped a sell-out crowd of 15,000 largely Afghan and Pakistan expatriates, enjoying the weekly holiday here, will show their support.<\/p>\n

“We want the public to share this historic moment with both the teams,” said Mangal.<\/p>\n

War-ravaged Afghanistan gained a notable foot up on the world cricket stage by finishing fifth in the 2011 World Cup qualifiers which earned them the right to play one-day internationals.<\/p>\n

They also won the right to play the third edition of World Twenty20, held in the Caribbean in 2010, by winning the qualifying tournament and then finished with a silver medal in the Asian Games in China in November that same year.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan, one of the 59 associate members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), are also the title holders of the Inter-Continental Cup meant for the Associate nations.<\/p>\n

The ICC, which contributes approximately 700,000 dollars a year to help Afghanistan’s development in cricket, has shown great delight in their progress, terming it as “a success story in cricket”.(AFP)<\/p>\n

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SHARJAH: Pakistan and Afghanistan play a historic first-ever one-day international between the two countries here on Friday with both captains vowing to make the game a memorable one. “It is a very important game for both countries and we will try to make the occasion memorable with some quality cricket,” Pakistan captain Misbah-ul Haq said. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[1115,3544,4772,3545],"class_list":["post-25541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan","tag-afghanistan","tag-odi","tag-pakistan","tag-sharjah"],"better_featured_image":{"id":25542,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":"468","height":"282","hwstring_small":"height='77' width='128'","file":"2012\/02\/2-10-2012_34701_l.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"2-10-2012_34701_l-150x150.jpg","width":"150","height":"150","source_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2-10-2012_34701_l.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1"},"medium":{"file":"2-10-2012_34701_l-300x180.jpg","width":"300","height":"180","source_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2-10-2012_34701_l.jpg?fit=300%2C180&ssl=1"},"post-thumbnail":{"file":"2-10-2012_34701_l-50x50.jpg","width":"50","height":"50","source_url":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2-10-2012_34701_l-50x50.jpg"},"120x85":{"file":"2-10-2012_34701_l-120x85.jpg","width":120,"height":85,"source_url":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2-10-2012_34701_l-120x85.jpg"},"415x260":{"file":"2-10-2012_34701_l-415x260.jpg","width":415,"height":260,"source_url":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2-10-2012_34701_l-415x260.jpg"},"150x150":{"file":"2-10-2012_34701_l-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"source_url":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2-10-2012_34701_l-150x150.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}},"post":25541,"source_url":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2-10-2012_34701_l.jpg"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pamirtimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2-10-2012_34701_l.jpg?fit=468%2C282&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25543,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25541\/revisions\/25543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pamirtimes.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}