India vs Afghanistan: Will Ishan Kishan, Ravichandran Ashwin Retain Their Place In IND's Playing 11?

India vs. Afghanistan, ODI World Cup 2023: On Wednesday at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, India will take on Afghanistan in the tournament's second match. The team captained by Rohit Sharma will want to build on their opening-game victory over Australia by six wickets in order to add two more points to their tally.

Shubman Gill, India's customary opener, will be absent due to dengue, from which he is still healing. This year, he is the top run scorer for the Men in Blue in ODIs and is part of India's purple patch. Gill has amassed 1,230 runs in 20 games this year, including six hundreds.

Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan

Ishan Kishan opened the batting with captain Rohit Sharma against Australia while he was absent, but they did not have the best of starts as both players went out for ducks. As a matter of fact, Shreyas Iyer too lost his wicket at zero during his dreadful tournament debut.

Given that Gill will not be playing in the match, Kishan will be under more pressure to earn a spot in the starting 11. Iyer will also be under scrutiny because the team management wants to use his middle overs strengths.

He has been doing occasional performances since his return. Iyer has batted and scored 0 runs in the last five innings (0, 48, 105, 3, 14).

Ashwin Ravichandran

Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadav were both in the Indian eleven for the first game. As the team has recently hinted, Kuldeep would be India's primary spinner in the competition. Against Australia, Ashwin only claimed one wicket, but Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja claimed two and three wickets, respectively.

India will try to go on with just Kuldeep and Jadeja since Delhi's short side boundaries would make it a high-scoring venue.

Will there be an opportunity for Mohammed Shami or Shardul Thakur?
If Ashwin is left out of the starting eleven, Mohammed Shami or Shardul Thakur will be the player selected. India's batting strategy would focus on depth, favouring pace-bowling all-rounder Thakur over Shami.

The likely Indian eleven is as follows: Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, and KL Rahul (wk).

The likely eleven for Afghanistan are: Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Naveen-ul-Haq, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Rasmanullah Gurbaz (wk).