Big Picture – Afghanistan’s changing of the guard?
Dead rubbers aren’t really an Afghanistan thing anymore. They beat England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Netherlands, and came close to getting past Australia, in the 2023 ODI World Cup. They earned their place in the 2024 T20 World Cup semi-final, dispatching New Zealand, Australia and Bangladesh to get there. Placed in the group of death at this T20 World Cup, they were a genuine threat to the progress of their peers.As it turned out, a heartbreaking loss to South Africa, at the end of two Super Overs, left their campaign hanging by a thread and now that thread’s been cut. Their game against Canada could well signal a changing of the guard. Mohammed Nabi, for example, is 41 years old and has already ushered in the next generation when he played a BPL game with his son Hassan Eisakhil last month. For what it’s worth, Rashid Khan hasn’t been told any of his players are thinking about moving on.Canada have left their mark on this T20 World Cup, their 19-year-old opener writing his name up in lights. Yuvraj Samra highlights the talent that is bubbling away, just to the other side of international cricket’s spotlight, and the one thing they now have to do is make the most of it by recording a win before they leave.
Afghanistan: WLLLW (Last five completed matches, most recent first)
Canada: LLLWW
In the spotlight – Gurbaz and Dhaliwal
One inch. Maybe two. If Rahmanullah Gurbaz had turned his bat face just a smidge more when he met Keshav Maharaj’s yorker, he would have found the gap at point and got the boundary that Afghanistan needed to push the South Africa game into a third Super Over. When he couldn’t, and was caught, he swiped the turf with his bat with so much force that he lifted himself off his feet. It will take some time for him to get over that. Maybe some runs here could help.Navneet Dhaliwal will end his Canada career on Thursday. The 37-year-old former captain is already their highest scorer in the shortest format and counts qualifying for their first T20 World Cup, in 2024, as among his most cherished memories. He has one more chance to add to them.
Team news – Changes unlikely
Barring injuries, it is unlikely either team will be making any changes.
Afghanistan (possible):1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 2 Ibrahim Zadran, 3 Gulbadin Naib, 4 Sediqullah Atal, 5 Darwish Rasooli, 6 Azmatullah Omarzai, 7 Mohammad Nabi, 8 Rashid Khan (capt), 9 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 10 Noor Ahmad, 11 Ziaur Rahman
Canada (possible): 1 Dilpreet Bajwa (capt), 2 Yuvraj Samra, 3 Navneet Dhaliwal, 4 Nicholas Kirton, 5 Shreyas Movva (wk), 6 Harsh Thaker, 7 Saad Bin Zafar, 8 Jaskaran Singh, 9 Dilon Heyliger, 10 Shivam Sharma, 11 Ansh Patel
Pitch and conditions – Chennai confounds
Given this game will start at 7pm local time, there is a chance that dew might play a part, in which case the team winning the toss will want to bowl. Pitches in Chennai have been excellent for batting, beating all pre-tournament predictions.
“When team is under pressure, I feel like we little bit lose our way which in T20 is very hard to come back from that. I feel like those are the things we need to improve playing against big teams in the future”.
Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan
