Hazratullah Zazai smashed the ball to every corner of the ground, and even out of the stadium, as Afghanistan racked up a world record T20 score of 278-3 in a crushing demolition of Ireland on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 20-year-old Zazai\u2019s unbeaten 162 included 16 sixes and 11 fours, delighting Afghan fans in the Indian city of Dehradun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His haul of sixes was another record, as was his stand of 236 with fellow opener Usman Ghani and the 22 sixes scored in all by Afganistan\u2019s players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ireland captain Paul Stirling also hit a six off the first ball of his side\u2019s innings as they chased a mammoth 13.95 runs an over to keep up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But they ended on 194-6 and Afghanistan won by 84 runs to wrap up the three match series with a game to spare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a pretty disappointing night,\u201d said Stirling. \u201cWe need to regroup now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI just wanted to play my natural game and today was my day,\u201d he said. \u201cThe wicket was good for batting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After managing just seven runs from their first two overs, Zazai and Ghani flailed the Irish bowlers, who from then barely managed an over without conceding a six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One giant hit off Shane Gelkate went over the stands and out of the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zazai\u2019s stocks have risen dramatically despite missing a place in the Indian Premier League this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In October, he became only the third batsman to hit six sixes in a T20 over for his Afghanistan Premier League side Kabul Zwanan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He equalled the record for the fastest T20 half century in 12 balls in the same match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Stirling and Kevin O\u2019Brien were no slouches, they never kept up with the mountainous run rate, which had risen to 17 by the 10th over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afghanistan\u2019s star bowler Rashid Khan came on for the 11th over and was furious when captain Asghar Afghan spilled a relatively simple catch off his first ball to give O\u2019Brien a chance with Ireland on 109.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
O\u2019Brien was bowled in the next over by Fareed Ahmad for a 37 which included two sixes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rashid bowled Andy Balbirnie in the following over for two and Stirling started to run out of reliable partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mujeeb Ur Rahman claimed Stirling — who as a consolation made Ireland\u2019s top T20 score of 91 off 50 balls — when he was caught by replacement Najeeb Tarakai on the boundary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The final match of the series is on Sunday. The two play five one-day internationals from February 28 and a one-off Test in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hazratullah Zazai smashed the ball to every corner of the ground, and even out of the stadium, as Afghanistan racked up a world record T20 score of 278-3 in a crushing demolition of Ireland on Saturday. The 20-year-old Zazai\u2019s unbeaten 162 included 16 sixes and 11 fours, delighting Afghan fans in the Indian city of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55733,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55731\/revisions\/55733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}