IND vs AFG 1st Match Prediction

IND vs AFG Team Previews

India

India will not have Virat Kohli for selection for the first match and so some of the difficult selection issues will wait till the second match of the series. Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal will open the inning, which also means that Shubman Gill may miss out on selection.  

Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, and Jitesh Sharma are likely to be the other players in the lineup. There are enough left-handers in this lineup to give India flexibility as well as a number of players that can play attacking modern T20 cricket. 

The four frontline bowlers will be Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar, and Avesh Khan with Kuldeep Yadav as the spinner. That leaves only the all-rounder's place open which will go to Axar Patel. Shivam Dube is a proven spin-hitter but his bowling is not good enough for a number seven slot. 

Dravid and Sharma may choose to make some surprise selection otherwise we don't think the playing eleven will deviate from what we have forecast. The strengths of this team are obvious. Strong batting at the top and a brilliant spinner in Kuldeep Yadav. 

The weaknesses are also quite obvious. The fast bowling unit is quite raw and the batting unit lacks the kind of depth that other top teams boast of.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan will not have Rashid Khan available for selection in this match. However, even without him, the Afghanistan team is not one that is weak by any standard. In fact, we think it is just a matter of time before Afghanistan gets its first win against India in this format. 

Their bowling attack has Noor Ahmed, Naveen ul Haq, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi, and Fareed Ahmad. They will also have Mohammad Nabi and maybe Azmatullah Omarzai in the playing eleven. This gives Afghanistan a lot of flexibility in selection and makes them very dangerous with the ball. 

All of these bowlers are experienced in T20 cricket and we think the Afghan bowling attack is superior to the Indian one in this series. The problem for Afghanistan comes in the batting department. They are highly dependent on Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran for their runs. 

There is a clear drop-off in quality once these two get out. Ikram Alikhil, Mohammad Nabi, and Najibullah Zadran are decent players but they cannot be relied upon to consistently set up matches. If Afghanistan can get enough runs on the board, its bowling attack should be able to do the job.