Dubai 8 September : Opening batsman KL Rahul is the captain of India in the place of usual captain Rohit Sharma.Afghanistan was the first team to win the toss, and chose to bowl first in the dead-rubber of Super Four stage in Asia Cup 2022 at the Dubai International Stadium on Thursday.Both India and Afghanistan are hoping to sign out of Asia Cup 2022 on a high after falling out of the race in the final.Both teams were winners in the group stage.
However, they were beaten in both of their matches in the Super Four stage.
The previous Wednesday, Pakistan got a breath-taking one-wicket victory against Afghanistan at Sharjah that meant that the Babar Azam-led team made it in the final against Sri Lanka on Sunday, eliminating India as well as Afghanistan out of the tournament.
“Left the field straight after the team’s meeting and had a cup of green tea, and then took a few sleeping pills.It was a very difficult night.We’ve performed good in the tournament and could have won in the two previous games.We’ll do our best perform well against a large team in the world of cricket.I hope it’s another great game,” said Afghanistan skipper Mohammad Nabi after winning the toss.
India on the other hand, has added three new players to their eleven following their six-wicket loss against Sri Lanka on Tuesday.
In addition to Rohit the speed all-rounder Hardik Pandya as well as leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal also are not in the squad.The trio to replace them in the 11 are Dinesh Karthik, Deepak Chahar and Axar Patel.
“We decided to start with bat first.We would like to test ourselves as a batting team.Rohit would like to rest and playing back-to-back isn’t simple in the conditions.Even before this tournament we were thinking of the T20 World Cup in mind.It’s an excellent learning experience for us to participate in such an event prior to the World Cup.We’ve learned several things from the defeats,” stated Rahul.
Playing XIs
India: KL Rahul (captain), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicketkeeper), Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Deepak Chahar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Arshdeep Singh
Afghanistan: Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wicketkeeper), Ibrahim Zadran, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi (captain), Karim Janat, Rashid Khan, Azmatullah Omarzai, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fareed Ahmad Malik and Fazalhaq Farooqi
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