Afghanistan's bowlers will ask questions, and India's batters must answer them
Written by I Dig Sports
Match details
Afghanistan vs India
Bridgetown, 10.30am local, 8.00pm IST, 2.30pm GMT
Big picture - India vs Rashid Khan
It takes a genius to beat a genius, and India are lucky to have Suryakumar Yadav, who has dominated Rashid in T20s, scoring 86 runs in 58 balls at a strike rate of 148 without being dismissed. Shivam Dube goes at a higher strike rate (155) over a smaller sample size (18 balls), but that brings into picture the other advantage that India have: left-hand batters. Rashid has not done as well against them in T20s lately. He kept them down to a strike rate of 109 in 2022 and 2023. This year, it's up at 141.
Afghanistan's bowling is their best strength, but India have them covered. So that means one of Afghanistan's batters will have to have a field day.
Form guide
Afghanistan: LWWWW (Last five completed matches, most recent first)
India: WWWWW
In the spotlight - Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Axar Patel
So much of the focus in this game will be on mystery spin. But underneath all that, happily flying under the radar, giving both tangible and intangible results is Axar Patel. His left-arm spin is all about containment, but he does that by attacking the stumps, while his batting at No. 8 gives India the confidence to hit out from ball one. Axar should also enjoy the fact that Afghanistan should have only two left-hand batters in their top eight.
Team news
India don't have any need to tinker with their XI. And despite the loss to West Indies, Afghanistan might not either.
Afghanistan (probable): 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 2 Ibrahim Zadran, 3 Gulbadin Naib, 4 Azmatullah Omarzai, 5 Mohammad Nabi, 6 Najibullah Zadran, 7 Karim Janat, 8 Rashid Khan (capt), 9 Noor Ahmad, 10 Naveen-ul-Haq, 11 Fazalhaq Farooqi
India (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Virat Kohli, 3 Rishabh Pant (wk), 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Shivam Dube, 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Jasprit Bumrah, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Arshdeep Singh
Pitch and conditions
Bridgetown has offered decent batting conditions, having hosted one of the three 200-plus scores seen in this tournament. The weather shouldn't be a problem.
Stats and trivia
- Afghanistan have played India in 13 games across formats, but are yet to win one
- Gurbaz (167) and Farooqi (12) are currently the highest scorer and the highest wicket-taker, respectively, in the T20 World Cup 2024
- India have not faced Rashid a lot in T20Is, but in two games, they have scored 69 runs in eight overs without losing a single wicket to him
- Rohit and Kohli are tied on 4042 T20I runs, with only Babar Azam (4145) ahead of them
Quotes
"I always thought that during the most difficult phase of T20, like between [overs] 7 to 14, 7 to 16 - I had thought about that a lot before making my debut for India - if I do well here, if I bat with a good strike rate, then I can be a game-changer on that day. And when I kept doing it repeatedly, I felt that this is my game plan going forward."
India batter Suryakumar Yadav
Alagappan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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