{"id":135641,"date":"2025-09-11T16:41:31","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T16:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/135641\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T16:41:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T16:41:31","slug":"afghanistan-dominate-hong-kong-in-asia-cup-2025-cricket-opener-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/135641\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan dominate Hong Kong in Asia Cup 2025 cricket opener | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Afghanistan begin their Asia Cup campaign with a thrashing of tournament minnows Hong Kong in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

Published On 10 Sep 202510 Sep 2025<\/p>\n

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Azmatullah Omarzai hammered a 20-ball fifty as Afghanistan thrashed Hong Kong by 94 runs in the opening match of the Asia Cup in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan elected to bat first and posted 188-6, with opener Sediqullah Atal playing the anchor role with an unbeaten 73 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

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His fifth-wicket partnership of 82 with Omarzai, who hit 53 off 21 balls, including two fours and five sixes, proved key for Afghanistan in the Group B fixture.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan\u2019s bowlers then combined to keep Hong Kong down to 94-9.<\/p>\n

Temperatures early on touched 40C (104F), but it was the humidity in the evening that tested the fitness of the players, who took regular drinks breaks.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong bowlers delivered two early blows to Afghanistan, but Atal stood firm to put on 51 runs with veteran Mohammad Nabi, who scored 33, as the two counter-attacked.<\/p>\n

Off-spinner Kinchit Shah broke the stand to dismiss Nabi, but Atal raised the run-rate with Omarzai, who hit his first T20I fifty \u2013 the fastest by an Afghan batter \u2013 with three sixes and a four before his departure.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong, whose fielders dropped five catches, were never in the chase after they slipped to 22-4 inside five overs, including two run-outs.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan\u00a0were playing less than 48 hours after their loss to Pakistan in the final of a tri-series in Sharjah on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Their next Asia Cup fixture is against Bangladesh on September 16.<\/p>\n

Tournament favourites India begin their campaign in Group A on Wednesday when they face hosts United Arab Emirates in Dubai.<\/p>\n

India and Pakistan meet on September 14 in the most-awaited match of the Twenty20 tournament, which serves as a build-up for next year\u2019s T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

\"RashidAfghanistan\u2019s captain Rashid Khan, third from right, celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of Hong Kong\u2019s Zeeshan Ali [Fadel Senna\/AFP]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Afghanistan begin their Asia Cup campaign with a thrashing of tournament minnows Hong Kong in Abu Dhabi. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,12241,44,588,85,29994],"class_list":{"0":"post-135641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-middle-east","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-arab-emirates"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}