The young Afghanistan team is all geared up to face the World No.1 team in their inaugural Test at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru from Thursday. The team took to the ground immediately after reaching the Graden City, even their skipper Asghar Stanikzai has said that his spinners are better than the Indian trio of R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Kuldeep Yadav.
While talking to ESPN, Stanikzai said, “The whole world knows that (we have good spinners like) Rashid Khan, Mujeeb, Nabi, Rahmat (Shah), Zahir (Khan). In Afghanistan, the brilliant thing is that a lot of the young talent that is coming through is spinners because they all follow Rashid, they follow Nabi, so because of that our spin department is very strong from below. In my opinion, we have good spinners, better spinners than India.”
Although the Afghanistan skipper has given a bit emotional statement, Phil Simmons sounded slightly more cautious as he said that while he didn’t wish to get into comparisons, he did have full faith in his bowlers and also felt that it was a big opportunity for the No.1 ranked T20I bowler — Rashid — to prove his mettle in the longest format of the game.
Afghanistan squad today began their training in Bangalore ahead of the #HistoricTest match against India by taking part in a practice session#INDvsAFG #AFGvsIND #PhenomenalRise pic.twitter.com/gymeFCvKyt
— Afghanistan Cricket Board (@ACBofficials) June 10, 2018
The Chinnaswamy pitch is once again expected to bating friendly unless it starts to take a bit of turn like it has over the years. Turn could in fact play a crucial factor in the game as Afghanistan have four spinners in the squad, looking for an opportunity to spin a web on the Indian batsmen. However, there is also the predictions of the rain in patches right through the week, except for the first two days of the Test on Thursday and Friday. But the facilities in Bengaluru are one of the best in the country and it could more be about stop-and-start action rather than long breaks.
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India will undoubtedly miss the services of regular captain Virat Kohli, out with injury, and Rahane will lead the Indian outfit as they look to get their season started with a bang.
SQUADS:
India: Ajinkya Rahane (c), Shikhar Dhawan, M Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Karun Nair, Dinesh Karthik (wk), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Hardik Pandya, Ishant Sharma, Shardul Thakur
Afghanistan: Asghar Stanikzai (c), Mohammad Shahzad (wk), Javed Ahmadi, Ihsanullah Jannat, Rahmat Shah, Nasir Jamal, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Afsar Zazai, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Zahir Khan, Hamza Hotak, Syed Ahmad Sherzad, Yamin Ahmadzai, Wafadar Momand, Mujeeb ur Rahman
