Afghanistan, as expected, produced a strong performance to knock out England on Wednesday. Big players produced big performances and they will have no fear whatsoever going up against the Australians.
Ibrahim Zadran, about as consistent a rungetter as you can get in this format, shattered records with a brilliant 177. Azmat Omarzai and Mohammad Nabi produced with bat and ball to secure an eight-run win.
That they didn’t need anything special from Rashid Khan, who was expensive at nearly 6.5 an over, confirms that they are not one-trick ponies. They should be able to field the same XI again and and have 30 overs of spin at least available.
Probable XI: Gurbaz, Ibrahim, Atal, Hashmatullah, Rahmat, Omarzai, Naib, Nabi, Rashid, Noor, Farooqi,
Australia need to win to ensure qualification. But they could get through on net run rate with defeat so long as England dish out a hammering to South Africa. In other words, it’s a quarter-final.
The washout in Rawalpindi for the South Africa clash has meant Australia have been twiddling their thumbs. It’s perhaps not ideal that they’ve not had a chance to get used to conditions in-game. They beat England convincingly in their only outing and should be unchanged.
Probable XI:
Short, Head, Smith, Labuschagne, Inglis, Carey, Maxwell, Dwarshuis, Ellis, Zampa, Johnson
PITCH REPORT:The Lahore surface looked like a road for England-Australia with 352 posted. And Afghanistan arguably left some out there when scoring 325 against England. Australia bat first score looking like 280-320 mark.
But we’re not going to be gung-ho. With such a quick turnaround between games could this be a used surface? Afghanistan would hope so to give more traction for their spinners. In-play, it might be worth considering a high sell on Aussie runs after the first ten overs in the expectation that Afghanistan can slow them down significantly.
PREDICTION:Afgan represent strong value as we have said for each of the matches they have played, the gulf in odds doesn’t represent the gap in ability. As they showed against England they are more than competitive and the minimum 30 overs of spin up their sleeves will, rightly, worry Australia.
Australia were humbled by spin in their warm-ups against Sri Lanka and they have had consistent issues. Who can forget in the World Cup when Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad squeezed Australia in Mumbai only to be undone by possibly the greatest ODI innings ever by Glenn Maxwell?
They might not be so lucky this time. Yes Afghanistan’s batters don’t like pace. But they only have Spencer Johnson to worry about here. It would be a different story had pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood been available. Afghanistan are the bet.
