Rohit Sharma’s men will be eager to step onto the field and continue their winning ways as they take on Afghanistan in the second round robin league match of the ICC Men’s World Cup to be played at the at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Wednesday, 11 October, 2023. Early this week the host soaked some extreme pressure moments in their tournament opener against five times world champions Australia in their six wickets win during the course of the 200-run tricky run chase at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai.

Reduced to 2 for 3 by the end of the second over, experienced campaigners Virat Kohli (85) and KL Rahul (96*) struck crucial half-centuries to revive the hosts fortune with their enterprising 165-run partnership for the fourth wicket off 215 balls after Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood (3/38) had earlier accounted for his skipper Rohit Sharma (0) and Shreyas Iyer (0) in his opening maiden over. Josh was once again in thick of action as he dismissed the well set Virat in the 38th over. Needing 33 runs at this stage wicket keeper batter Rahul in the company of Hardik Pandya (11*) ensured no further hiccups, as he smashed the winning six over covers off rival skipper Pat Cummins to ensure India achieve the target with  52 balls to spare.

Earlier, India bowled out Australia for 199 in the 42nd over following a disciplined effort with the ball by their spinners led by left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja (3/38) in the company of Kuldeep Yadav (2/42) and local favourite Ravichandran Ashwin (1/34). The trio strangled the Australian run flows and conceded 104 runs for their six wickets and delivered 16.5 overs of dot balls within their collective maximum quota of 30, after David Warner (41) and Steven Smith (46) had put on 65 runs off 89 balls for the second wicket, after the early dismissal of Mitchell Marsh (0) by ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah (2/35) in the third over of the innings. Ravindra did the bulk of the damage with his middle over blows which included the key wickets of Steven and later with a double wicket strike of a well set Marnus Labuschagne (27) and wicket keeper batter (0) that saw Australia lose half their side being reduced to 119 by the 30th over.

As pointed out by skipper Rohit Sharma, who incidentally is the eighth Indian captain to lead the team at the marquee 50-over global event, the biggest challenge for his team would be to quickly adapt to the various conditions over the course of the league stage and one can expect changes in the team composition.

This can be evident from the fact that the venue for their next match turned out to be a run feast and witnessed more than 750 runs being scored between South Africa and Sri Lanka last week, with as 31 sixes and 74 fours being scored smashed by both teams, before the former emerged winners by 102 runs in the end.

In the absence of inform Shubman Gill who has been ruled out of the game for the second time in a row due to dengue, Ishan Kishan will hope to make amends for his failure upfront on his world cup debut alongside Rohit and Shreyas Iyer who too did not disturb the scorers.

The game will also be a homecoming for chase master Virat Kohli who reinforced his credentials batting despite missing out on his 48th ODI century and will be expected to give his fans another outing to remember.

Rahul too has become the Mr. Dependable like his Indian Coach Rahul Dravid over the years and has been the mainstay in the middle order, since returning from a long injury with a century against Pakistan in Asia Cup last month.

In the bowling department, India could be forced to make a change considering the short boundaries conditions and may hope to forgo the services of one of their three spinners in place of experienced pacer Mohammad Shami.

In view of their six wicket loss against Bangladesh, Hashmatullah Shahidi’s Afghanistan side will be aiming to turn things around in Delhi, in particular the batting department which had managed to score mere 156 runs in their tournament opener in 37. 2 overs in front of a sizable number of Afghani fans who are residing in Delhi.

Their spinners Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Zadran will hope to restrict the strong batting line up of India if they harbour any chance of a win

 Starting XI to select from:

India: Rohit Sharma (captain), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami, Suryakumar Yadav, Shubman Gill, Shardul Thakur.

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

Photo Above: Indian spinners led by Kuldeep Yadav will hope to make an impact once again against Afghanistan (Photo courtesy ICC/BCCI)