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India vs Afghanistan Predictions: Cricket World Cup betting tips, news, lineup

By Andy Watson

Published: 9:42, 9 October 2023

India will look to build on a big opening victory when they take on Afghanistan in Delhi on Wednesday (09:30 BST).

India bowled brilliantly, especially with spin, to tie Australia up in knots in their opening game. Whilst the openers were very ropey, India will be pleased that their big name middle order appear to be in great form.

Afghanistan will have been disappointed with their performance against Bangladesh, getting bowled out in 37 overs isn’t going to win many games in ODIs.

India vs Afghanistan Betting Tips

Tournament favourites to assert themselves in the qualification round

The Indian effort for glory on home soil has begun. There were a few hiccups along the way, being 2-3 in a run chase is never the plan, but it would’ve been pleasing for the home team, and home fans, to see Virat Kohli in good touch and KL Rahul got very close to a century as well.

However, the Indian bowling attack, with their triple threat of spin, really strangled the Australians. They will be aiming for similar here against Afghanistan.

It is going to be a very tough ask for Afghanistan to get much out of this match. The players will just be aiming to go out there and execute their individual performances and hope that it will be enough to get the win. They have played India three times in ODIs and did manage to get a tie in one of those three so it is not outside the realms of possibility.

Afghanistan only have one ODI World Cup win to their name. Better chances will come to add to that than this, but if they have aspirations to qualify for the latter stages then they have to get some points on the board sooner rather than later.

Shubman Gill played an awful shot to get out against Australia, but he will be out to show what he can do off the back of that. India are a short price to provide the best batsman here, and Gill could be the man to carry the runs for India at #3.

There is a chance, especially if Afghanistan bat first, that the most important contribution comes from the Indian bowlers. Bumrah will open the bowling and if he skittles the top order he could be the key man to get the win for India.

Tips:

India vs Afghanistan team news

Both sides have named their 15 man squads for the Cricket World Cup. Here are the details of the players who will line up on Tuesday:

India: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav.

Afghanistan: Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Riaz Hassan, Rahmat Shah, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Ikram Alikhil, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Noor Ahmad, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Abdul Rahman, Naveen ul Haq.