Afghanistan's preparations for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026 got off to a great start. In their first warm-up game in Bengaluru on Monday, they beat Scotland by 61 runs.
Afghanistan won the toss and decided to bat first. In their 20 overs, they scored a strong 184 runs for 6 wickets, which set the tone for the rest of the game. Darwish Rasooli had a great game, hitting seven fours and five sixes to score 84 runs off 46 balls. He was in charge of the middle of the innings and kept the score going.
Ibrahim Zadran hit 36 runs off 32 balls to help Rasooli. Mohammad Nabi, a veteran all-rounder, scored 34 runs off of just 16 balls, which sped up the scoring rate at the end of the innings.
Scotland bowlers were able to get wickets early on, but Afghanistan bounced back quickly and picked up speed in the middle overs. Scotland had a hard time catching up to Afghanistan's total because they had a lot of good batsmen.
In response, Scotland had a hard time getting going against a disciplined Afghan bowling attack. A small number of batsmen fought back. Matthew Cross and Michael Jones both scored 21 runs, but they kept getting out, so they couldn't work together.
The Afghan bowlers were great the whole time, but Azmatullah Omarzai stood out with a strong spell of 3 for 14 in three overs, which often broke Scottish resistance. Mohammad Nabi also helped with the ball by getting two wickets, and Ziaur Rahman Sharifi got another one. This kept Scotland to 123 all out in 20 overs.
Afghanistan's win sends a good message because it gives them confidence before the tournament starts. They were strong in both their batting and bowling. Scotland, on the other hand, will try to get back on track and fix their problems in the warm-up games that are coming up.