Afghanistan bowl, hand debut to fast bowler Bilal Sami

Toss Afghanistan opt to bowl vs Zimbabwe

Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi won the toss and opted to bowl first in the third ODI against Zimbabwe in Harare.

Shahidi made two changes to the side which had crushed the hosts by 232 runs in the second ODI. Left-arm pacer Fareed Malik took the place of Fazalhaq Farooqi in a like-for-like replacement, while Afghanistan handed a debut to right-arm pace bowler Bilal Sami. Sami, who has 34 wickets in 18 List A games at an average of 24.64, came in for Naveed Zadran in the XI.

Zimbabwe captain Craig Ervine announced two changes as well: Joylord Gumbie replaced Dion Myers at the top of the order, while left-arm spinner Wellington Masakadza took the place of right-arm seamer Tinotenda Maposa, who had made his debut in the second ODI on Thursday.

Afghanistan lead the three-match series 1-0, after the first ODI was washed out. Zimbabwe are yet to beat Afghanistan in a bilateral ODI series.

Afghanistan have won all of their last five ODI series against Zimbabwe, dating back to October 2015, the first one, in July 2014, was drawn 2-2.

Zimbabwe: 1 Joylord Gumbie, 2 Ben Curran, 3 Craig Ervine (capt), 4 Sean Williams, 5 Sikandar Raza, 6 Brian Bennett, 7 Tadiwanashe Marumani (wk), 8 Wellington Masakadza, 9 Newman Nyamhuri, 10 Richard Ngarava, 11 Trevor Gwandu

Afghanistan: 1 Sediqullah Atal, 2 Abdul Malik, 3 Azmatullah Omarzai, 4 Rahmat Shah, 5 Hashmatullah Shahidi (capt), 6 Mohammad Nabi, 7 Ikram Alikhil (wk), 8 Rashid Khan, 9 AM Ghazanfar, 10 Fareed Malik, 11 Bilal Sami

Himanshu Agrawal is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo

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