Chennai, Oct 22: A desperate Pakistan will be wary of a competent group of Afghanistan spinners’ ability to strike hard on an often-gripping Chepauk pitch during the World Cup match here on Monday.
A win is mandatory for Babar Azam’s side after two successive defeats against India and Australia, as another slip up will severely hamper their ambitions to reach the semifinals of the tournament.
Currently, they are in the fifth position with four points from as many matches but their net run rate of -0.456 is a worry, and it needs improvement.Pakistan’s big headache will be their batsmen’s travails, especially against spinners.Even on a batting beauty in Bengaluru, their batters gave four crucial wickets to Aussie leg-spinner Adam Zampa, and they struggled to read his skidders.Afghanistan have undeniable quality in their spin ranks as Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi and Mujeeb Ur Rahman can really trouble the best, and on a potentially favourable surface here they can kick up a mayhem.In that context, Pakistan will need some steady effort from their batters particularly from Babar, who have been underwhelming in this event so far.Mohammad Rizwan, the current tournament top-scorer with 294 runs, has done the bulk of work with the bat for them.But rest of the middle-order batters like Saud Shakeel and Iftikhar Ahmed have not done enough to keep confidence in them.Pakistan’s bowling too has not evoked much hope either. Traditionally, their bowlers have chipped in when their batters go off the boil, but this time they have not really stepped up to the occasion.Left-arm pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi showed some signs of regaining his range with a five-wicket haul against Australia at the M Chinnaswamy stadium.
But the form of other two pacers Haris Rauf and Hasan Ali remains a concern as they are still coming to terms with the demands of bowling inside the Power Play.
Pakistan always had some handy spinners supplementing the fast bowlers, but here left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawas and leg-spinners Shadab Khan and Usama Mir just don’t look the part. (PTI)
