Confident India aim to continue winning start against a tricky Afghanistan unit

India started their World Cup 2023 campaign in an excellent manner with a fine victory over Australia at Chennai. Their bowlers were exception to skittle out Australia for a paltry 199 after which the batting unit did get off to a shaky start but thanks to a 165-run partnership between KL Rahul and Virat Kohli, India got across the finish line. 

After their first victory, the entire Indian team will be brimming with confidence ahead of their second World Cup clash against continental neighbours, Afghanistan. The Afghans will be hoping for a turnaround of the tide after a meek defeat at the hands of Bangladesh in their tournament opener. Their batters failed to showcase their prowess as only Rahmanullah Gurbaz showed some promise with a 47 in their modest 156. Despite a decent show from Azmatullah Omarzai with the ball, Bangladesh coasted home without breaking a sweat.

India will continue to be without their key opener, Shubman Gill, who is still to get fit from a bout of dengue. The belief will obviously be that the Men in Blue will be heading to the game with an unchanged XI from that against Australia, with the onus on the top order to get back into form.

Afghanistan will be hoping to surprise India with one those roaring displays that has seen them slaying big teams in the past. However, for any of that to happen, their batters need to come together as a unit while their bowlers will be hoping to continue the good work that they did in their last game.

Venue Watch:

The Arun Jaitley Stadium has been a hunting ground for India considering the dominance that they have knitted in this venue. Highlighting the dominion, India has won the last six ODIs out of the seven that have been hosted at the venue since 2005, while the other got washed out. The surface has its own bag of tricks when it comes to batting. With 29 ODIs being played, 14 of them have been won batting first while 14 of them have been won batting second. The average first innings score in the venue is 230 while the average second innings score is 207.

Head to Head:

Matches played: 3

India – 2

Afghanistan - 0

Tie - 1

Match Details:

Match – India vs Afghanistan

Venue: Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi

Date: 11th October, 2023

Time: 2:00 PM

World Cup face-offs:

Matches played: 1

India: 1

Afghanistan: 0

Squads:

India: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav.

Afghanistan: Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Rahmat Shah, Riaz Hassan, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Ikram Alikhil, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Abdul Rahman, Noor Ahmad, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Naveen-ul-Haq.