Afghanistan were seventh in the last Under-19 World Cup, and on the strength of today's performance against their neighbours, it's a long shot for them to repeat that this time round.

The Afghans were put into bat after Pakistan captain Gauhar Hafeez won the toss, and they lost opener Naveed Obaid for a duck early on in the innings. Skipper Ihsanullah - the younger brother of former senior captain Nawroz Mangal - was out soon afterwards.

Karim Janat was the third man out having scored 27 out of Afghanistan's 29 runs to that point, and his team were well on the back foot at this point. A fourth wicket partnership of 69 between Ikram Faizi and Tariq briefly looked like putting Afghanistan back into the game.

That partnership ended when Faizi was caught by Hasan Khan off his own bowling, with Tariq following four overs later for 53. At that point Afghanistan were 111-5 and ended up being bowled out for 126, only three batsmen reaching double figures. Shades Khan was the pick of the bowlers with 4-9.

The Afghanistan bowlers showed more promise than their batsmen, bowling tightly to keep Pakistan scoring at under 4 an over for most of their reply. The Pakistan target wasn't too high though, and they won by six wickets with 18.3 overs to spare.

Both teams will next be in action on Saturday when Afghanistan play Sri Lanka and Pakistan play Canada.