A determined Pakistan will probably be cautious of a reliable group of Afghanistan spinners’ capability to strike onerous on an often-gripping Chepauk pitch through the World Cup match in Chennai on Monday. A win is necessary for Babar Azam’s facet after two successive defeats towards India and Australia, as one other slip up will severely hamper their ambitions to succeed in the semifinals of the event. At the moment, they’re within the fifth place with 4 factors from as many matches however their web run price of -0.456 is a fear, and it wants enchancment. Pakistan’s massive headache will probably be their batsmen’s travails, particularly towards spinners.

Even on a batting magnificence in Bengaluru, their batters gave 4 essential wickets to Aussie leg-spinner Adam Zampa, they usually struggled to learn his skidders.

Afghanistan have simple high quality of their spin ranks as Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi and Mujeeb Ur Rahman can actually bother the most effective, and on a probably beneficial floor right here they will kick up a mayhem.

In that context, Pakistan will want some regular effort from their batters notably from Babar, who’ve been underwhelming on this occasion to this point.

Mohammad Rizwan, the present event top-scorer with 294 runs, has achieved the majority of labor with the bat for them.

However remainder of the middle-order batters like Saud Shakeel and Iftikhar Ahmed haven’t achieved sufficient to maintain confidence in them.

Pakistan’s bowling too has not evoked a lot hope both. Historically, their bowlers have chipped in when their batters go off the boil, however this time they’ve not likely stepped as much as the event.

Left-arm pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi confirmed some indicators of regaining his vary with a five-wicket haul towards Australia on the M Chinnaswamy stadium.

However the type of different two pacers Haris Rauf and Hasan Ali stays a priority as they’re nonetheless coming to phrases with the calls for of bowling contained in the Energy Play.

Pakistan all the time had some useful spinners supplementing the quick bowlers, however right here left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawas and leg-spinners Shadab Khan and Usama Mir simply do not look the half.

They had been neither in a position to pluck wickets nor cease the movement of runs, a main cause behind Pakistan’s failure to exert management over their rivals within the center overs.

And that can exactly be the purpose Afghanistan will look to money in on tomorrow, and they’ll eye a greater outing from their batsmen.

Their batters, besides opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz, too have not been in a position to hearth in a desired method within the quadrennial massive bash.

There have been flashes by Ikram Alikhil, Azmatullah Omarzai and Hashmathullah Shahidi however they should infuse some consistency into their efficiency as Pakistan are nonetheless a much more skilled opponent at such phases.

In addition they take pleasure in a 7-0 edge within the head-to-head stats towards Afghanistan in ODIs.

Aside from the on-field calculations, the Pakistan vs Afghanistan rivalry has developed some needle to it over the previous couple of years.

If the groups can hearth themselves as much as the event, then we may see one other traditional.

Afghanistan:Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Ibrahim Zadran, Riaz Hassan, Rahmat Shah, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Ikram Alikhil (wk), Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Noor Ahmad, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Abdul Rahman and Naveen ul Haq.

Pakistan:Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Salman Ali Agha, Mohammad Nawaz, Usama Mir, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Wasim.

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