Afghanistan choked and contrived to lose from a winning position against South Africa in the Quadrangular Under-19 one day series at the Sports Hub on Saturday.
Chasing 201 for its first win in the tournament, Afghanistan appeared to have sealed the contest when it needed only 18 runs from five overs and with four wickets in hand.
But man-of-the-match Byrce Parson (two for 32) and Marco Jansen (four for 25) had other ideas. The duo kept it tight by bowling to their field and dried up the runs.
The Afghanistan's lower order wilted under pressure to lose the match by nine runs. Left arm medium pacer Marco profited from Parson's spell to take three wickets. He first forced the well settled Islam Khan (21) to edge a catch to wicketkeeper Luke Beaufort while Shafiqullah Ghafri ran himself out for a duck.
In his final over Marco cleaned up Mohammed Hassan Khan (7) and Faxal Haq Farooqi (0) off successive deliveries to give his side an unlikely win.
READ: South Africa aims to shrug off chokers’ tag at 2019 World Cup
After Achille Cloete's twin strikes, which reduced Afghanistan to 29 for three, a 88-run stand between Farhan Khan (63) and Reyaz Hassan (35) put the chase on track. But Parson derailed it with the prize wicket of Farhan.
Earlier, put into bat South African batsmen found the Afghanistan spinners hard to get away.
The joint top-scorers Luke Beaufort (40) and Byrce Parson (40) added 57 runs for the fourth wicket but without really challenging the slow bowlers.
After Parson's dismissal the South African innings suffered a slump with four wickets falling for nine runs.
Reyaz Hassan (three for 26) and Shafiqullah Ghafri (two for 24) were instrumental in the collapse that saw South Africa slip from 123 for four to 132 for seven.
However, Andile Mogakane (38), who struck a few lusty blows of medium pacer Fazal Farooqi, with the help of the tail enabled South Africa reach 200.
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