Big picture: Slim hopes for both teams
Afghanistan have an 11-3 win-loss record against UAE, their opponents for Monday’s day game in Delhi. But a New Zealand win over Canada the following day is enough to knock them out.
So, how do Afghanistan and UAE proceed? Perhaps, as players often say, by taking one game at a time.
Afghanistan LLLWW (last five T20Is, most recent first)
UAE WLLLL
In the spotlight: Ibrahim Zadran and Sohaib Khan
Both teams are likely to go with unchanged XIs.
Afghanistan (probable): 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 2 Ibrahim Zadran, 3 Gulbadin Naib, 4 Sediqullah Atal, 5 Darwish Rasooli, 6 Azmatullah Omarzai, 7 Mohammad Nabi, 8 Rashid Khan (capt), 9 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 10 Noor Ahmad, 11 Fazalhaq Farooqi
UAE (probable): 1 Aryansh Sharma (wk), 2 Muhammad Waseem (capt), 3 Alishan Sharafu, 4 Mayank Kumar, 5 Harshit Kaushik, 6 Sohaib Khan, 7 Muhammad Arfan, 8 Muhammad Farooq, 9 Haider Ali, 10 Junaid Siddique, 11 Muhammad Jawadullah
It’s a day game. So the team winning the toss may want to bowl first to take advantage of the early moisture. The weather should be sunny, and the temperature is likely to hover around 25°C.
“We are definitely [disappointed]. In the last one and a half year, we worked hard to get the result of one of the first two games on our side. But sometimes it doesn’t go your way… But you don’t know – anything can happen. The other day Zimbabwe beat Australia, so let’s see if we get a little bit chance, but more importantly, in the last two games, we have to put all the effort there.”
Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan on losing the first two games
“We’ve played with them [Afghanistan players] and against them in ILT20. And we’ve had a couple of bilateral and tri-series with them. So yeah, we have played them, and we have beat them before. We have cracked the code in the past, and we’re backing our chances. We want to go out there and be as positive as we can.”
UAE batter Alishan Sharafu on his side’s chances
