Key events
Afghanistan team
No changes from the side that lost to South Africa.
Zadran, Gurbaz (wk), Atal, Shah, Shahidi (c), Omarzai, Nabi, Naib, Khan, Ahmad, Farooqi.
England team
Jamie Overton comes into the fold as the seam bowling all-rounder.
Salt, Duckett, Smith (wk), Root, Brook, Buttler (cap), Livingstone, Overton, Archer, Rashid, Wood.
Afghanistan win the toss and bat
Well that’s a surprise. All the talk before the toss was around how Afghanistan would’ve been keen to bowl, but there you go. England will do the honours with the ball first up.
We’ve got our first email… and it’s none other than Guy Hornsby:
Morning Daniel. I hope you’ve got your white whale South Africa shirt ready for their next game. As for England, helped by the weather, I’m not sure it’ll mean much. We can, should, and probably will win today. As gutted as I am for Carse, I think Overton’s variations will give us more options today. But Afghanistan are a serious team now and we can’t expect to win. We need to be ruthless and we need to play the situation, or we could fall flat on our faces. So much more needed from this team to get anywhere. Because we won’t stand a chance against SA if we don’t play better.”
Good news on the shirt front. I’ve got it! Cost me a pretty penny, but worth it.
Agree that Afghanistan are a serious team. They’re certainly better than what they produced against the Saffas. England will have to be sharp today.
Good news on the Ali Martin-laptop front.
All relatively friendly and got resolved soon after. Wasn’t like they were pointing them directly at us…
Side note from me, it’s really great to see Pakistan hosting a major(ish) tournament again. I know they’ve been knocked out, and I know they’ve had to play India ‘away” and I know there are issues the two south-Asian giants playing each, and I know there are a million things that our sport gets wrong, but this is at least a crumb of comfort. The crowds have been great (at least in the games I’ve watched) and the cricket’s been decent too.
Our man Ali Martin is at the Gaddafi Stadium, dealing with all sorts in Lahore, including security guards with machine guns who insist that laptops aren’t allowed in the ground (hopefully that’s all sorted, otherwise you’ll have to call in your copy):
Curious as to size of the crowd given it’s a working day, although walked past a fair few guys in Afghan shirts, face paints etc
There’s more than just a Champions Trophy semi-final spot on the line for Jos Buttler. He admits that his captaincy is in jeapardy.
Lose today, and he might not wear the armband again once the team returns from Pakistan.
Preamble
Daniel Gallan
Sound the klaxon – we’ve got a MUST-WIN contest on our hands. The equation is simple. Loser goes home. Winner stays on with a shot at the semis to come.
England should win it, really. They’re fresh from posting a monster total against Australia (sure they lost, but that doesn’t mean their score of 351-8 wasn’t sizeable). And Afghanistan, despite all their advances in recent years, were pretty poor against South Africa, stumbling to a 107-run loss in their opening game.
The cricket, of course, is just one strand to today’s narrative. This fixture has been wrapped up in political tension ever since there were calls for England to boycott the game in response to the gender apartheid taking place in Afghanistan. Those calls were rejected and the show goes on.
England’s former No. 3 stalwart and now Afghanistan’s coach, Jonathan Trott, has defended his players, but they need to do their bit with bat and ball. Can they turn controversy into rocket fuel? Or will England roar back to set up a showdown with South Africa on Saturday?
We’ll find out when things get going at 9am UK time, 1pm in Lahore.
Toss, teams and further updates to follow.
If you’d like to get in touch and share your thoughts, please drop me a mail.
