Afghanistan have won the toss and elected to field first against India. 

Skipper Mohammad Nabi said at the toss that Afghanistan were the sort of team to bat first and post a big total. However, he said today he had selected to field first against India because of the “dew factor”. 

Indian skipper Virat Kohli acknowledged his team is “in a tricky situation” as it had lost the two opening matches against Pakistan and New Zealand. 

He hoped the team will play well today and bounce back against Afghanistan. 

India: Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli (capt), Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, R Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah

Afghanistan: Hazratullah Zazai, Mohammad Shahzad (wk), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi (capt.), Sharafuddin Ashraf, Gulbadin Naib, Rashid Khan, Karim Janat, Naveen-ul-Haq, Hamid Hassan

For pre-tournament favourites India, nothing has gone to plan so far in the T20 World Cup. They lost two tosses, their batting failed twice, their bowlers have taken only two wickets so far, and they find themselves second-last on the Group 2 table with no points from two games.

They can mathematically still finish in the top two of the group and make it to the semi-final. But the first step of that involves winning well against Afghanistan.

The Afghans aren’t going to make things easy, of course. They are an in-form team, with an excellent net run rate after big wins against Scotland and Namibia, and gave Pakistan some nervous moments as well. Their spin attack is world class, and will be the main threat to an Indian batting line-up that has struggled to get going against spinners.

Afghanistan have been able to so far go against one of the trends in the World Cup: whereas most teams winning the toss have chosen to chase, and most teams chasing have won, Afghanistan have chosen to bat, and backed their bowlers to defend the totals. Happily for them, their pacers have supported the spin trio well.

They have also adopted an aggressive batting strategy – in contrast to India’s more conservative approach – and it has worked well for them so far. With the pressure on India, they may take the chance to play with further freedom.

Pakistan have already reached the last four from Group 1 leaving New Zealand, Afghanistan and India to fight for the last qualifying spot.