02:00 PM UTC: India vs Afghanistan, Group 2, Super 12s, ICC Men’s T20 World Cup
India will face off Afghanistan in a “must-win” clash during the T20 World Cup. India lost their first two encounters against Pakistan and New Zealand while Afghanistan has won two out of three games so far.
India can’t underestimate Afghanistan
Although Afghanistan won two of their games against two relatively lower-ranked teams, the squad almost pulled off a victory versus the Semi-Finalists Pakistan. They have a deep bowling attack with Naveen, Mujeeb, Rashid, Gulbadin, Hamid, Nabi, and an out-of-form Indian batting lineup will have to execute carefully against them. Indians will like to have a bowl first considering the way things have gone while batting first with dew settling in later, making it tough to grip the ball.
Afghanistan’s batting will be tested
Afghanistan has a simple batting approach. Just go for big shots and don’t care about the fall of wickets. A bowling lineup with Jaspreet Bumrah and Mohammad Shami, who offer a lot of pace with the latter swinging the ball, mostly doesn’t offer that luxury. However, with middle-order batters like Zadran and Nabi, with Nabi playing some handy knocks against India before, the team can balance out the early wickets. But then will it be feasible to swing at everything and create pressure for the middle order? India enters as favorites but Afghanistan has a history of upsetting teams.