Former India player Aakash Chopra has said that the lack of quality pacers is one of Afghanistan’s weaknesses heading into the Champions Trophy 2025 as well. He also said that Fazalhaq Farooqi was the only quality seamer in their lineup as well. However, Afghanistan are placed in Group B alongside Australia, England, and South Africa as well, to be played in Pakistan and Dubai from February 19 onwards. Apart from Farooqi, Fareed Ahmad and Naveed Zadran are the two frontline pacers in their provisional squad as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “Fazalhaq Farooqi is their only quality pacer. They have Fareed Ahmad and Azmatullah Omarzai as well but they are not the same quality. They have just one quality pacer, who can also take care of the death. They will be one of those teams that will bowl spin even at the death.”
“They have options, but pacer is something that they tend to miss a little. Since all their games are in Pakistan, they should be able to manage. Interestingly, Pakistan have kept only one spinner in their squad and only one fast bowler might play in Afgshanistan’s XI and the second might be Azmatullah Omarzai, and a bit of Gulbadin Naib,” he further added.
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In the same video, Aakash Chopra also chose the lack of attacking batters, barring Rahmanullah Gurbaz, as Afghanistan’s probable weakness heading into the Champions Trophy 2025 as well.
“The batting is solid but you didn’t see too many attacking batters apart from Rahmanullah Gurbaz. You see Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi and Ibrahim Zadran going slowly. All of them bat at the same pace. They don’t have too many batters who score quickly. So if it’s a 325 to 350-run game, their batting gets stuck slightly,” he said.
“Sometimes the pitch is extremely flat and even though you have quality spin or bowling, it is taken for runs. What will you do then? Then you look towards your batting as the pitch might be like a cemented one, and you get that many times in Pakistan. There their batting struggles at times in terms of firepower at the top,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
