Ahead at Halfway, All Out for 81: Arab Gul's Four Overs Turn Japan's Big Night Into a Lesson

For ten overs on Thursday evening in Nisshin, Japan had the game where they wanted it. They had won the toss, bowled first and held Afghanistan to 129 for 6. At the halfway mark of the chase they were 59 for 3, a few runs ahead of where Afghanistan had been at the same stage. The first match of the Asian Games men's tournament, played in front of a home crowd, was a proper contest.

Then it stopped being one. Japan went from 60 for 3 to 63 for 8 in a little over three overs and were all out for 81 in 19.3 overs. Afghanistan won by 48 runs. The man who did the most damage was Arab Gul, who bowled four overs, two of them maidens, and took 4 for 8. Some collapses are loud. This one was quiet: dot balls piled up until the batters ran out of ways to get off strike.

Afghanistan's innings was not a smooth one. Hassan Eisakhil made 3 from 10 balls before Reo Sakurano-Thomas had him lbw, the first wicket falling at 14 in the fourth over, and the powerplay brought only 39 for 1. Mohammad Akram top-scored with 34 from 29 balls, including two sixes, before he was stumped by Alex Shirai-Patmore off Benjamin Ito-Davis. Afghanistan were 52 for 2 after 9.2 overs. They were 79 for 4 after 15.1, with Karim Janat and Najibullah Zadran both caught by Lachlan Yamamoto-Lake off Ibrahim Takahashi, and a total well short of 129 looked likely.

What turned the innings was the fifth-wicket stand between captain Darwish Rasooli and Mohammad Ishaq: 44 runs from 25 balls, which took the score from 79 to 123 by the 19.2-over mark. Ishaq finished unbeaten on 25 from 17, and Afghanistan scored 50 from the last 29 balls. It was the biggest partnership of the match, and in a game that ended with a 48-run margin, those runs were worth far more than they looked.

The bowling then did what the batting had not quite managed: it was relentless. All six bowlers went at under six and a half an over. Abdollah Ahmadzai struck with the third ball of the chase. Najibullah Zadran, better known for his batting, bowled three overs for 7 runs. Six bowlers shared ten wickets, and seven of the ten were bowled.

Japan deserve credit for more than the final score shows. Their bowlers had Afghanistan at 79 for 4 with under five overs left. Takahashi (4-0-19-2), Sugaya-Slater (3-0-18-2) and Sakurano-Thomas (2-0-6-1) were all sharp. The expensive overs came from Declan Suzuki (2-0-27-0) and Charlie Hara-Hinze (4-0-28-0), and the late acceleration probably cost Japan fifteen or twenty runs more than they would have liked to chase.

Losing Lachlan Yamamoto-Lake for a three-ball duck did not rattle the chase. Sakurano-Thomas made 23 from 24, and Ito-Davis hit 17 from 8 balls with a six and two fours. Japan reached 59 for 3 at ten overs, needing 71 from 60 balls with seven wickets in hand. That is a gettable target in any T20.

From there, though, the innings fell apart. The fourth wicket fell at 60 in the eleventh over, and two more went in the twelfth. By the end of the fourteenth over it was 63 for 8: five wickets for three runs. Alex Shirai-Patmore used up 12 balls for 2, Takahashi 10 balls for 2, and Hara-Hinze five balls for nothing. The problem was not wild shots. Japan simply could not score, and in the end the pressure of dot balls took the wickets. It is a hard lesson, and one Japan can put right straight away: the first ten overs showed they can compete. What they need now is a way to rotate the strike when the scoreboard stalls.

The numbers point to a surface where runs were hard to come by for both sides. The match produced 210 runs across 39.3 overs, a little over five an over. Afghanistan managed 39 in their powerplay and Japan 31, and there were only five sixes in the whole game. The most economical figures on either side were Arab Gul's 8 from four overs, Najibullah's 7 from three and Sakurano-Thomas's 6 from two. On this surface, bowlers who gave the batters nothing to hit were very hard to score off.

Seven bowled dismissals in Japan's innings suggest the ball was reaching the stumps often enough to punish anyone playing across the line. Afghanistan's late charge, 50 from the last 29 balls, showed that runs could be scored with wickets in hand and a set batter at the crease. That was the one thing Japan did not have when their chase needed it.

There was no Player of the Match award at the Asian Games, but it was not hard to pick the standout performance. Arab Gul bowled 24 balls, conceded 8 runs, bowled two maidens and took four wickets. In a match where Japan had been going at close to six an over through the first ten, he dried up the scoring completely.

The wickets told the story of the collapse. He bowled Sakurano-Thomas, Japan's top scorer and the batter who had held the chase together. He had Takahashi and Hara-Hinze caught by Ismat Alam, and he bowled Declan Suzuki. Nangeyalia Khan (3 for 19) finished the job, bowling Sugaya-Slater to end the match with three balls left. But the game was really won in Arab Gul's overs, when a chase that was on track turned into a long wait for the end.

We did not publish a dedicated preview for this fixture, so there is no call to grade. Our Group A previews for the later matches, Afghanistan vs Nepal and Japan vs Nepal, described Afghanistan as a development side without their marquee names. They also named Benjamin Ito-Davis as the Japan player to watch. His night had flashes of that: 17 from 8 balls, and the stumping of Mohammad Akram off his bowling. But the Afghan squad we called unproven had enough depth in its bowling to take ten wickets for 79 runs.

Group A has three teams, Afghanistan, Japan and Nepal, and the top two go through to the quarter-finals, where India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are waiting as seeds. Afghanistan now have a win and a healthy margin, and they play Nepal on September 25. Japan's group ends against Nepal on September 26. For the hosts, that match is now close to a must-win, and the equation may depend on what Nepal do against Afghanistan the day before.

Japan should take something from the first half of both innings on Thursday: they bowled a Full Member to 79 for 4 and were ahead in the chase at halfway. What let them down was a middle-overs spell of about twenty balls. That can be fixed in two days, and for a home side playing on this stage, the chance to put it right comes quickly. Unlock CricIntel Pro for Asian Games cricket analysis.