Published: Jan 20, 2017, 07:37 PM (IST)
Edited: Jan 20, 2017, 07:37 PM (IST)
After 14 matches, we finally have two teams who will sweat it out in Desert T20 final on Friday evening. After reaching the knockouts, Scotland and Oman were eliminated by Ireland and Afghanistan respectively to book a date for the summit clash. The live cricket streaming of the match is available on skysports.com, while the live telecast will be available on Sky Sports Network. Afghanistan will be favourties for the tournament decider as they have not lost a single game yet. On the other hand, since both the semi-finals and final are being played on Friday itself, Ireland have less time for the decider as they played the last semi-final before entering the last tie.
This is the first ever edition of the Desert T20, where eight associate nations have come together in a tournament for the first time. The quality of cricket has been extremely good so far. With one more match to go, one hopes that it lives up to the high expectations and the best team wins the inaugural edition of Desert T20. Afghanistan beat Oman by 8 wickets in the first semi-final whereas Ireland trounced Scotland by 98 runs in the second knockout game to set up a riveting contest.
Desert T20 2017, 1st semi-final: Afghanistan hammer Oman by 8 wickets; qualify for final
Squads:
Afghanistan: Asghar Stanikzai (c), Amir Hamza, Dawlat Zadran, Fareed Ahmad, Gulbadin Naib, Karim Janat, Mohammad Nabi, Mohammad Shahzad (wk), Najeeb Tarakai, Najibullah Zadran, Naveen-ul-Haq, Rashid Khan, Samiullah Shenwari
Ireland: William Porterfield (c), Andrew Balbirnie, Joshua Little, George Dockrell, Jacob Mulder, Andy McBrine, Kevin O’Brien, Barry McCarthy, Boyd Rankin, Greg Thompson, Paul Stirling, Stuart Thompson, Gary Wilson (wk), Craig Young
