BEN­GALU­RU, In­dia– An­oth­er dom­i­nant dis­play with first, bat, then ball, saw Afghanistan se­cure a com­pre­hen­sive 23-run vic­to­ry over the West In­dies in their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup warm-up fix­ture in In­dia at the BC­CI Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence on Wednes­day.

Asked to bat first, both ag­gres­sion and clear tac­ti­cal in­tent de­fined Afghanistan’s in­nings as the ex­plo­sive open­ing duo of Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz, who scored 43, and Ibrahim Zad­ran set the tone, amass­ing 90 runs in a blis­ter­ing 8.5-over stand.

The mo­men­tum bare­ly wa­vered as Zad­ran, af­ter a flu­ent 50, and lat­er con­trib­u­tors Dar­wish Ra­sooli with 27 and Az­mat­ul­lah Omarzai 35, all chose to re­tire out, in a strate­gic move to give the mid­dle or­der cru­cial time in the mid­dle be­fore the re­al ac­tion gets go­ing in the tour­na­ment.

De­spite Ros­ton Chase re­mov­ing Sediqul­lah Atal for 12, Afghanistan’s depth en­sured a for­mi­da­ble to­tal of 182-6 was on the cards.

The West In­di­an re­ply nev­er found its foot­ing against a re­lent­less Afghan at­tack. Seam­er Az­mat­ul­lah Omarzai struck ear­ly to re­move cap­tain Shai Hope for five, set­ting a tone of dom­i­nance.

Afghanistan’s bowlers ap­plied un­yield­ing pres­sure, re­duc­ing the vis­i­tors to a pre­car­i­ous 54-5 with­in the first eight overs.

The cru­cial wick­et of the set bat­ter Rov­man Pow­ell, who scored 32 off 27, claimed by the ex­pe­ri­enced Mo­ham­mad Nabi, ef­fec­tive­ly snuffed out any re­al­is­tic hope of a re­vival.

A late, spir­it­ed cameo from Matthew Forde, who smashed an un­beat­en 52 from just 26 balls, and Ja­son Hold­er’s 25 not out pro­vid­ed some re­spectabil­i­ty to the to­tal. How­ev­er, the tar­get proved in­sur­mount­able, with the West In­dies fin­ish­ing at 159-7.

Omarzai shone as the pre­mier all-rounder, con­tribut­ing a rapid 35 with the bat and tak­ing two key wick­ets.

The bowl­ing ef­fort was a unit­ed front, with Mu­jeeb Ur Rah­man al­so claim­ing two scalps, while Fazal­haq Fa­rooqi, Zi­aur Rah­man, and Nabi each chipped in with a wick­et.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

AFGHANISTAN 182-6 in 20 overs (Ibrahim Zad­ran 51 re­tired out, Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz 43, Az­mat­ul­lah Omarzai 35 re­tired out, Dar­wish Ra­sooli re­tired out; Ros­ton Chase 1-18, Gu­dakesh Motie 1-29)

WEST IN­DIES 159-7 in 20 overs (Matthew Forde 52 not out, Rov­man Pow­ell 32, Ja­son Hold­er 25 not out; Mu­jeeb Ur Rah­man 2-19, Az­mat­ul­lah Omarzai 2-32)

Afghanistan won by 23 runs.