Barbeque days are here again with the sun out for a good fortnight from today and the temperatures forecasted to peak to 25 degrees Celsius on match day, much to the delight of locals, the ICC and the cricket lovers in general.
In cricketing terms, this gives an uninterrupted run to the India-Afghanistan match at the picturesque Aegis Bowl here on Saturday after three days of intermittent but intense showers soaking up the delightfully green ground encased by a textbook perfect wooded area in the north and an 18-hole up and down golf course in the East.
The picnic basket weather will come in handy for a well-set India to take on the beleaguered Afghans who have, till now, lost all the five matches they have played against other teams and were most recently mauled by England’s captain Eoin Morgan with his record breaking 17 sixes.
Their star bowler Rashid Khan is yet to recover from the ignominious figures of 110 runs for no wickets and the skipper has been holding his head in exasperation trying to steer away queries on his boys being involved in a Manchester bar brawl, the removal of Asghar Afghan as skipper just before the World Cup and coach Phil Simmons’ tweet suggesting there were eleventh-hour selection misdemeanours which marred the team’s prospect.
Add to that the destruction the team has gone through at the hands of its much more arrived rivals and there is very little that can bring these newbies of cricket into earnest playing form, especially against a team like India where stalwarts of the game have been going about their business with ease and determination. As Afghan skipper Gulbadin admitted disarmingly at his pre-match Press conference “it will be a big learning experience.”
India, hit by the injuries of Shikhar Dhawan who is out of the tournament and Bhuvneshwar Kumar who is struggling to return with a hamstring stiffness, are in a good space with the chant of having “ticked all the boxes” in the run-up to every game. The Men in Blue will be using the game to build up a score to boost their run rate in case permutations come into the game for the semi-final berth later in the tournament, so to expect a run fest on Saturday would not be charged with over optimism, what with the brown hard pitch giving come-hither winks to the bat.
Rohit Sharma, in continued platinum form and two centuries in the pocket, KL Rahul out to prove the cement in him, and a classy Virat Kohli to follow, the opening reflects the bright sun in the blue skies above. The middlemen are equally set in variety — Hardik the destructor, Shankar the all-rounder and Dhoni the finisher, all with their eye in and mind on escalate mode.
Add to that Indian quicks sitting on rapidly lionised reputations further magnified with accuracy, strategy, respect and pace, and the Afghans have quite a tough job at hand. More so, with Mohammed Shami, in for an injured Bhuvneshwar Kumar, being “a changed man” high on fitness, ambition and pace, raring to go as his skipper Kohli put it the other day.
Concerns around Vijay Shankar’s toe injury which he picked up at nets to a Bumrah yorker have been fielded away by the player himself but the inclusion of the brassy and dauntless Rishabh Pant, against a comparatively easier opponent, could give the young lad some match practice on the big stage.
All in all, a good day in offing for the tournament’s Go Team which sports self-belief as a major tool to success and has worked against any no down day in the tournament.
