ICC World Cup 2023: Kiwis need to be wary of Afghan spinners

Afghanistan have three quality spinners in Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi

By Anis Sajan

Published: Tue 17 Oct 2023, 10:30 PM

Last updated: Wed 18 Oct 2023, 2:57 PM

Afghanistan pulled off the first big upset of the 2023 Cricket World Cup by beating England in Delhi and will be high on confidence when they take on New Zealand in Chennai.

One of the reasons for them to be confident is because the match will be played at a ground where spinners play a huge role.

The Chennai pitch is known to assist spinners. This was the same pitch that helped the Indian spinners get the better of the Australian batsmen when they bowled them out for just 199.

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Afghanistan have three quality spinners in Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi who picked up eight wickets between them against England. They enjoyed complete control of the game.

And if Rahmanullah Gurbaz can once again set the platform for the batting along with Ibrahim Zadran, the rest of the Afghanistan batsman only need to capitalise on the start and not collapse like they did against England after being 114 for no loss before slumping to 150 for four.

Thanks to the big hitting by Rashid and Mujeeb and smart batting by Ikram Alikhil that they managed to post a decent score.

Mind you New Zealand too have good spinners in Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi and in Trent Boult they have one of the best left-arm swing bowlers in the game.

The Kiwis are the team to beat in this World Cup after their three clinical wins against England, Netherlands and Bangladesh.

It remains to be seen if Afghanistan bat well to score a decent total that they can defend against the Kiwi batters who all are in top form.

But as Rashid mentioned Afghanistan are not at the World Cup just to create upsets but to win more matches against big teams and prove to the world that they can play the 50 overs game and not just be regarded as a T20 team.