Afghanistan will take on West Indies for the one last time in this ICC World Cup 2019 at Headingley, Leeds. This will be a game played for pride, experience, and bench testing and will not have any impact on the point’s table for semi-finals.
Afghanistan will want to end their ICC World Cup 2019 journey with a win. The Afghan spinners were mind-blowing throughout the tournament. Firstly, they choked the Indian batsmen, secondly, they almost pulled a victory against Pakistan but a poor over from the skip Gulbadin Naib let the match slip away from their grab. They have played some good cricket so far, but still not matured enough to beat the competition. The match against India was the closest one for them to the victory, but thanks to some great death bowling from Indians. Afghanistan dropped Mohmad Shahzad in the mid-tournament announcing him unfit was a big blow, as he was one of the experienced campaigners. Nothing much to analyze for them but Rahmat Shah, Gulbadin Naib and Mujeeb Ur Rahman have evolved through this tournament and in the coming years, this experience would help them a lot.
KEY PLAYERS: Gulbadin Naib, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman.
West Indies have some players who may play their last World Cup match tomorrow, so would expect to end their World cup careers on a high note. A disappointing tournament for West Indies started with a great win over Pakistan, since then they failed to make a mark. Chris Gayle has had a couple of good knocks under his belt could not perform when it needed the most. Shai Hope is running through a lean phase. Captaincy standards look poor, even though Jason Holder’s personal performance is quite impressive, West Indies are having a nightmare this World Cup. Cottrell is one positive that has come ahead for Windies and they will surely groom him for the future.
Key Players: Gayle, Holder, Cottrell.
Match details
Date: Thursday, 4th July 2019
Time: 03:00 PM IST, 010:30 pm local.
Venue: Headingley, Leeds
Head to Head:
Matches: 5
Afghanistan 3 – West Indies 1
Tied: 0 No result: 1
In World Cup: Have never faced each other before.
Weather Report
No rains expected in the forecast. Sun will shine out with glory, and high humidity as much as 60% is predicted. There will be some cloud cover and temperature around 22 degrees Celsius is expected.
Pitch Report
Pitch is expected to be dry, so spinners will have an advantage. Batting first will be a great option as later in the day batting will become tough.
Playing XI:
West Indies:
Chris Gayle, Sunil Ambris, Shai Hope, Nicholas Pooran, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder(c), Carlos Brathwaite, Fabien Allen, Kemar Roach, Sheldon Cottrell, Oshane Thomas
Afghanistan:
Gulbadin Naib (c), Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Hazratullah Zazai, Mohammad Nabi, Samiullah Shinwari, Najibullah Zadran, Ikram Ali Khil (wk), Rashid Khan, Dawlat Zadran, Mujeeb Ur Rahman
Playerzpot XI: