In group C of the inter-provincal domestic competition, Kabul won its way through to the semi-finals. The first match in this group featured the strong Logar and the minnows Jowzjan. Logar, from the east of the country, unsurprisingly annihilated Jowzjan. Such was their margin of victory (10 wickets and 242 balls to spare), Logar were literally guaranteed a place in the quarter-finals.
In the next match, Kabul comfortably chased down the 131 runs needed for victory against Kunar. Aftab Alam, the national team medium-pacer, took a five-wicket haul for Kabul.
What followed next was a minor bit of controversy: due to Samangan not being deemed good enough, this group contained only five teams compared to the six in the other groups. This meant there was an uneven amount of teams; hence the Afghanistan cricket board got in to a bit of a muddle. Instead of Kabul playing the team who hasn’t played yet, Ghanzi, they played Logar. So, Ghanzi got into the quarter-finals without playing a match.
Anyway, Kabul beat Logar by two wickets in a closely contested match. Although it was slightly disappointing that two strong teams could only manage 271 runs for the loss of 18 wickets.
However, this was rectified somewhat when in the quarter-final match, Kabul smashed an imposing 348 runs; they even batted their full quota of overs. Ghanzi came out swinging, but they fell 147 runs short. This win sealed Kabul’s place in the semi-finals alongside Laghman and Panjshir.
You can get occasional commentary – sometimes ball-by-ball commentary – of group D on afgcric
