It’s time for Rashid Khan and his Afghanistan lineup to be favorites in a Twenty20 international cricket tournament.
Afghanistan has a formidable, spin-heavy squad for the tri-series that starts Friday and also features Pakistan and the host United Arab Emirates. It’s a tune-up for next month’s Asian Cup, which is also being staged in the UAE.
Last year Afghanistan reached the T20 World Cup semifinals before losing to South Africa, a run to the last four that underlined its strength in the shortest format of international cricket.
Seven T20 games over the next 10 days at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium will involve the teams competing against each other twice before the top two qualify for the Sept. 7 final.
The slow pitches of Sharjah Cricket Stadium are unlikely to produce any big scores — the 200-run mark has been crossed only four times in 41 T20 internationals at the 16,000-capacity stadium.
Afghanistan’s advantage
The slow nature of the pitches has encouraged Afghanistan to pack its squad with five spinners, including the uncapped AM Ghazanfar. Rashid Khan and mystery spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman have conceded fewer than six runs per over in a combined 23 T20s at Sharjah, while picking up 43 wickets.
Experienced allrounder Mohammad Nabi, who also bowls offspin, is rich with experience from playing in 25 T20s for Afghanistan at Sharjah, where he’s taken 16 wickets at an impressive economy rate of 6.49.
Left-arm spinner Noor Ahmad had some impressive performances in IPL this season while representing Chennai Super Kings. The spin bowling attack is expected to pose some serious challenges to the rival batters.
Pakistan’s prospects
Pakistan has its spin bases covered. Specialist spinners Abrar Ahmed and Sufiyan Muqeem are backed up by off-spinners Saim Ayub and captain Salman Ali Agha and left-armer Mohammad Nawaz. They’re all capable of bowling a full quota of four overs in a T20 game, if the conditions favors slow bowling.
Pakistan’s new limited-overs coach Mike Hesson has yet again ignored experienced veterans Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan as he searches for batters with better strike-rates upfront.
Babar and Rizwan haven’t played a T20 international since December. Pakistan has instead given consistent chances to Sahibzada Farhan, Mohammad Haris and Saim Ayub to look out for quick runs in the batting powerplay as it builds a team for next year’s T20 World Cup.
Hesson wanted to see Babar not only improve his batting against spinners but also wanted him to score at a faster rate to regain his place in the T20 squad.
Pakistan has had mixed results over the last few months since Hesson was appointed coach. It started with Pakistan routing Bangladesh 3-0 at home before Bangladesh rallied to beat Pakistan 2-1 in the return series in Dhaka. Pakistan then won 2-1 against West Indies in Florida as Hesson experimented with batting and bowling combinations.
UAE aims for an upset
Uncapped left-handed batter Harshit Kaushik is among the four changes UAE has made after it lost to the hosts at the Pearl of Africa Cup in Uganda. Leg-spin allrounder Mohammad Farooq, who has nine wickets in 8 T20s, and fast bowlers Junaid Siddique and Mohammad Jawadullah are the others who’ve returned to the UAE squad.
Coach Lalchand Rajput believes that after winning a T20 series against Bangladesh at home in May, the UAE team has the ability to beat any other test playing nation in the shortest format.
