England will be wary of Afghanistan at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla on Wednesday for a number of reasons. With assistant coach Manoj Prabhakar knowing Kotla like the back of his hand, the Afghans are quite capable of pulling of a surprise. Catch live score and live updates of England vs Afghanistan here. (LIVE SCORECARD | POINTS TABLE | NEWS | VIDEOS | GALLERIES)
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England have never lost to Afghanistan in two previous T20 internationals. Their first win came in Colombo in October 2012 in the ICC World T20. England won by 116 runs. But this Afghanistan team has come a long way as Sri Lanka and South Africa found out in the ongoing ICC World T20 2016.
With nothing to lose, Afghanistan’s aggressive cricket can hurt England’s chances. They have trained in Greater Noida for a couple of months and will get a lot of support at Kotla. England will surely be under pressure.
On form, England look competent. After losing to the West Indies, England beat South Africa in a run fest in Mumbai. England pulled off the second-highest run chase in Twenty20 international history to stun South Africa and get their World T20 campaign back on track.
Chasing 230 in Mumbai, Joe Root struck a composed 44-ball 83 after Jason Roy blitzed 43 from 16 deliveries. But conditions in Kotla will be different. The slow and spinning nature of the Delhi pitch may not see high scores.
Given England’s history of losing to associate nations in ICC events, Eoin Morgan will not think too far ahead. England have lost to the Netherlands twice in 2009 and 2014 World T20 and Ireland in the 2011 50-over World Cup in India.
Afghanistan certainly see their chance to score a big win against a Test-playing nation in this edition of the ICC World T20.
Source: NDTV