Previewing the Match: India's poised side vs Afghanistan's crafty play

Ayaz Memon deconstructs the matchup between confident Indian side who is against tenuous yet wise Afghanistan team

Transcript

00:00 Hi, I'm Ayaz Mehmed with the World Cup update.

00:02 After an impressive win against Australia in their opening match, India are now up against Afghanistan in their second match.

00:08 This is going to be played at Delhi where just a few days back South Africa posted a mammoth 4-20, a record score against Sri Lanka.

00:16 Are we going to see a batting pitch again? We don't know.

00:18 But what we do know is that Afghanistan, on paper, a far weaker team, are capable of pulling off upsets.

00:28 They had a poor match against Bangladesh in their first outing but a lot can happen in a few days.

00:36 And remember, they are a hardy lot, not too much pressure on them.

00:40 This is not a match they are expected to win so all the pressure will be on India.

00:43 The main threat to India from Afghanistan comes from spin.

00:47 Rashid Khan, Mujibur Rahman, Mohammad Nabi, these guys have been around and so too.

00:52 Naveen Ullakh, their fast bowler, they've been playing in the IPL, they're familiar with Indian conditions,

00:57 they're familiar with the Indian players. Will that be of some help? We'll have to wait and see.

01:01 What India needs to do is of course get some of their batsmen who couldn't come good against Australia,

01:07 namely Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Shreya Sair.

01:11 I mean at one stage India were 2 for 3 so you can imagine what the top 3 didn't contribute much.

01:17 But they need to come in form for the stiffer challenges that lie ahead.

01:21 Rahul and Kohli were brilliant. I thought the performances of the spinners, Jadeja, 3 wickets, Kuldeep Yadav,

01:31 both really impressively flummoxed the Aussie batsmen and also Ashwin was really tight.

01:37 The middle overs where Australia lost it and India won the match.

01:40 But we're talking about India and Afghanistan so I think that the need for India now is to consolidate

01:47 their position on the table, get 2 more points, increase their net run rate.

01:51 For that they will have to be All Systems Go. There is no opportunity to be lax in this tournament at all.

01:57 India are the favourites and they have to play like that.

02:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]