T20 World Cup: Mohammad Nabi opts to field as India include Ravichandran Ashwin, Suryakumar Yadav

Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi has opted to field after winning the toss in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2021 encounter against India. The former will be missing out on the services of spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman once again, with the cricketer missing the last game due to an injury as well. India on the other hand have opted to make two changes with Suryakumar Yadav and Ravichandran Ashwin included, at the expense of Ishan Kishan and Varun Chakaravarthy.

“There was a lot of dew in the second half”

Nabi stated that his decision to field was influenced by the dew factor.

“Will bowl first. Last game there was a lot of dew in the second half. Mujeeb isn’t playing. We always prepare for both, but today we’ll bowl first because of dew. We’ll play normal cricket and go and enjoy,” he stated as quoted by Cricbuzz.

“There’s still a chance”

Team India skipper Virat Kohli admitted that there was no denying the fact, that the scenario with regard to qualification was quite tricky for his team.

“Firstly there’s no denying the fact that the situation is a tricky one. Having said that there’s still a chance. We as a team will look at the chance and try to play positive cricket. We know we haven’t played up to potential whatever the reasons might be – need to brush that aside. Would have bowled first. But it’s not a bad thing against a side like Afghanistan who look to put up runs on the board. Couple of changes – Surya is back as he’s fit. Ashwin replaces Varun who has a bit of a niggle,” he said.

Lineups:

Afghanistan (Playing XI): Hazratullah Zazai, Mohammad Shahzad(w), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi(c), Gulbadin Naib, Sharafuddin Ashraf, Rashid Khan, Karim Janat, Naveen-ul-Haq, Hamid Hassan.

India (Playing XI): KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli(c), Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah.

India shouldn’t have demoted Rohit Sharma against New Zealand: Sunil Gavaskar

The Indian team opted to demote Rohit Sharma to the number 3 position, in the T20 World Cup encounter against New Zealand. Sunil Gavaskar criticised the decision, stating that the decision did not help the team.

“I don’t know if it’s the fear of failure or something else. But the changes in the batting order didn’t help the team. A big player like Rohit Sharma is sent at no.3. And then someone like Kohli, who has scored so many runs at no.3, comes to bat at No.4. Then you have a young player like Ishan Kishan, who has been given the responsibility to open the batting,” he said in an interaction with Sports Tak.

“See, Ishan Kishan is like a hit-or-miss player. He will make runs in one match and then he won’t in the others. So for this sort of player it would be better if you make him play at no.4 or 5 and then he can swing his bat on the basis of the situation. But here you sent him to open so what happened is that you told Rohit Sharma that we don’t have confidence in you facing the left-arm bowling of Trent Boult. If you do that to a player who has played in that position for so many years, he will also think that he actually doesn’t have the ability,” added Gavaskar.