Pakistan won the toss and chose to bat first in the championship game and suffered a big blow as Sahibzada Farhan was dismissed for a duck by Fazalhaq Farooqi in the first over. Despite the early wicket, Fakhar Zaman and Saim Ayub steadied the ship towards the end of the powerplay as Pakistan finished the first six overs on a decent score of 41/1. Despite the slight recovery, Afghanistan’s wrist spin duo of Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad put Pakistan under pressure straight away, with Ayub lobbing a simple catch to covers off Noor and Rashid trapping Fakhar plumb in front of his stumps on a score of 27 off 26 deliveries. The problems did not end there, as Hasan Nawaz and Mohammad Haris were dismissed cheaply and fell victim to the Afghan legend and the young left-arm spinner, putting the Green Shirts in a precarious position at 76/5 after 12 overs. Though Pakistan seemed to be in a tough position, Salman Agha and Mohammad Nawaz formed an important partnership of 40 off 32 balls for the sixth wicket until it was finally broken by the Afghan skipper, who dismissed Salman in the 17th over on a score of 24 off 27 deliveries. Despite the dismissal of their skipper, Nawaz and Faheem Ashraf got a few hits away before Ashraf edged one past the keeper in the 19th over. Nawaz’s innings of 25 off 21 also came to an end in the last over by Farooqi, but they still managed to get 46 off the last five overs to bring the team to a defendable total of 141/8 at the end of their 20 overs.
Though Pakistan had an underwhelming outing with the bat, they made up for it with the ball as Shaheen Afridi struck with an early wicket of Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who edged the ball to the slips in the first over. Sequilah Atal was the next man to go as he gifted a simple catch to cover off Abrar Ahmed. However, the over that turned the tables was bowled by Mohammad Nawaz, who dismissed Darwish Rasooli and Azmatullah Omarzai in two consecutive deliveries in the last two deliveries of the sixth over. The left-arm spinner did not stop there as he completed his hat-trick in the eighth over, as Ibrahim Zadran was stumped by Haris on the first delivery and followed it up by dismissing Karim Janat in the next two deliveries, leaving Afghanistan in an abysmal position at 32/6 after eight overs. The game was done and dusted for Afghans, with Abrar ending Mohammad Nabi’s ten-ball struggle in the eleventh over and Nawaz getting his first five-wicket haul in T20Is with a wicket of Rashid in the 13th over. Sufiyan Muqueem took the last two wickets, and the Afghans were finally bundled out for 66, as Pakistan won the game by a huge margin of 75 runs in the end. With this dominant win, the Men in Green claimed the UAE T20I tri-series as well and ended up victorious in the South Asian derby.