After making it to the Super 8, winning all their three league matches, besides splitting points with Canada being called off, Rohit Sharma and Co will begin their T20 World Cup 2024’s Super 8 campaign on Thursday as they take on Afghanistan.
This is the first match for India in the Super 8 stage. The game will be played in Barbados’ Bridgetown from 8:00 pm onwards. Unlike the US phase of the tournament, India will play all three matches in the Caribbean. With change of weather, the pitch will also behave differently.
The Kensington Oval has been the venue of 29 T20I games so far. This venue has a very definite advantage for this side that has won the toss and elected to bat first. On 18 occasions, the side that has won the toss and opted to bat first has won the match. On the other hand, the side chasing has won just 8 times. This is not a high-scoring venue.
As per the statstics, on an average, Kensington Oval has seen a total of 160 of so. The Barbados pitch has displayed bounce and is very pacer-friendly. But that doesn’t mean that batters can’t enjoy their big shots. Some matches here have seen a score of 180-190, meaning there are runs for batters too.
India are expected to go with an unchanged XI which means Kuldeep Yadav will still not find a place in the playing XI. Afghanistan might rope in Nangeyalia Kharote for Karim Janat.
LIKELY SIDES
India: Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma (captain), Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Shivam Dube, Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh.
Afghanistan: Ibrahim Zadran, Gulbadin Naib, Najibulah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan (captain), Nangeyalia Kharote, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Noor Ahmad, Naveen-ul-Haq, Fazalhaq Farooqi.
