Afghanistan face up to the ideal they are working towards
Written by I Dig Sports
Experience is how batters learn when to go hard and when not to, when to just reduce risk, absorb the pressure and just trust that you can make up for lost ground. Experience is also how bowlers know it is important to keep hitting the same spot on the pitch over and over and over again. Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja exemplified this against Australia. No one in the Afghanistan team was able to do anything close in their match against a close rival.
ODIs demand that you hold your nerve and your discipline for far longer than T20s do. The best place to learn that is bilateral cricket. But Afghanistan don't really have that. What they do have - what they've managed since 2012 - are consistent World Cup appearances. It's become the only meaningful way to test themselves. India are the ideal Afghanistan are striving towards and tomorrow they'll see how far they've come and how far they may yet go.
India WLWWW (last five completed ODIs, most recent first)
Afghanistan LLLLL
In the spotlight - Rohit Sharma and Rahmanullah Gurbaz
Team news: Thakur for Ashwin?
Both Rohit and his coach Rahul Dravid have been rather vocal about how important it will be for the squad to adapt to various conditions as they progress through this World Cup. Chennai was spin-friendly so they picked a bowling attack to suit that. Delhi won't be, so it's quite likely they'll ask R Ashwin to step aside for Shardul Thakur.
India (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shubman Gill/Ishan Kishan, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer/Suryakumar Yadav, 5 KL Rahul (wk), 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Mohammed Siraj
Afghanistan (probable): 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 2 Ibrahim Zadran, 3 Rahmat Shah, 4 Hashmatullah Shahidi (capt), 5 Mohammad Nabi, 6 Najibullah Zadran, 7 Azmatullah Omarzai, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Naveen-ul-Haq, 10 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 11 Fazalhaq Farooqi
Pitch and conditions
The Feroz Shah Kotla was the scene where World Cup records tumbled with South Africa and Sri Lanka aggregating the highest match total and Aiden Markram amassing the fastest century."As a team we are prepared to do that. It is something we have been talking about in our group - whoever suits the conditions needs to come and do the job for us."
India captain Rohit Sharma says he is prepared to play horses for courses
"We have a good spin-bowling attack, but only one department can't win you games. You have to score runs for that, to win the game."
The Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi wants a lot more from himself and the rest of his batting order
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