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Afghanistan v India: T20 Cricket World Cup – live

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2 weeks ago

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Key events

Apologies, I was completely fooled by the TV pictures, apparently the ground is only about an eighth full. Only 10.30am in Barbados. Afghanistan get into a huddle and do a kind of all for one and one for all hand pyramid before breaking free. Kohli and Rohit to start the innings for India.

Out march the players, Rohit with his arm round the lead mascot. Looks pretty full in the stands, lots of blue and orange shirts and flags. Sunglasses featuring quite heavily for Afghanistan.

One of the pleasures of this tournament has been to see Rishabh Pant back behind and in front of the stumps. Taha wrote a lovely appreciation.

Afghanistan XI

Afghanistan: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Ibrahim Zadran, Hazratullah Zazai, Gulbadin Naib, Azmatullah Omarzai, Mohammad Nabi, Najibullah Zadran, Rashid Khan (capt), Noor Ahmad, Naveen-ul-Haq, Fazalhaq Farooqi.

One change for Afghanistan too, Hazratullah Zazai replacing Karim Janat.

India XI

India: Rohit Sharma (capt), Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh.

One change for their last group-stage game, Kuldeep Yadav replaces Mohammed Siraj.

Ian Smith with the pitch report – it’s a scorchio 31 degrees with a wind speed of 12 kph blowing in from the long boundary. Sunil Gavaskar says that India want to capitalise on the ball coming onto the bat quite quickly.

India win the toss and will bat!

Rohit Sharma: “Looks a good track, no grass on the pitch, think it will get slower and slower. We had a good time in New York, won games there, but have to adapt to here. Had a couple of training sessions to get used to the new conditions.

Rashid Khan would have batted too, “but it doesn’t really matter to me, it is how we play the game. I think now every team is good, we need to do the right things at the right time, play our natural game. We’ve been here for more than a couple of weeks, I think that will help us a bit but at the same time we still have to play good cricket.”

Looks balmy and beautiful and blue skied and blissful in Bridgetown. Ravi Shastri in huge hat with overblown introduction to the toss.

Preamble

Hello! After England’s thunder to victory at St Lucia in the early hours, another cracking match bubbles behind the cork – this time between Rohit Sharma’s India and surprise Super Eight contender Afghanistan, who elbowed New Zealand out of the running in Group C.

The circus has moved to Barbados, India’s first footing on Caribbean soil this tournament. They come into the Super Eights undefeated, despite the travails of the New York pitch, while Afghanistan lost only to West Indies – but it was quite the shellacking.

Ali wrote about it here:

Play starts at 3.30 BST, the toss in 15 minutes.

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