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Key events
7th over: Afghanistan 51-0 (Gurbaz 25, Ibrahim 17) It’s coming on nicely out there! Ibrahim steps forward, turning Curran’s loosener into a half volley and stroking four through cover! Two singles follow while, in co-comms, Shaun Pollock asks for a short one. It’s not forthcoming, but this is boiling nicely.
6th over: Afghanistan 45-0 (Gurbaz 24, Ibrahim 12) Oh yes! Topley offers Ibrahim a little width and he goes with soft hands, guiding four through deep point. Afghanistan are going nicely here and a wide and single follow … then when one arrives short, wide and pleading to be hit, Gurbaz hurls hands and smokes past Root’s dive at point! Another 10 off that over so, as we all would if we needed something to happen, Buttler turns to Sam Curran.
5th over: Afghanistan 35-0 (Gurbaz 20, Ibrahim 7) Oh Chris. Oh mate. Woakes runs in, Gurbaz moonwalks away, Woakes tries a cutter … and Gurbaz unloads the suitcase at one that races to the cover fence for four! And when the next ball also arrives overpitched, a deft carve sends it through point for four more! You don’t say this often, but Chris Woakes is taking a pasting! Two singles, 10 off the over, and 31 off three!
4th over: Afghanistan 25-0 (Gurbaz 11, Ibrahim 6) Even when not bang at it, Topley’s tricky to get away, and the batters can only manage three shoved singles, a leg-side wide making it four from the over. Against more dangerous opponents, I daresay Buttler would be thinking about replacing Woakes, but my sense is he wants overs in his legs and that he bowls his way into rhythm.
“A pretty hot day today but I’m in trousers and a jumper,” writes Simon Burnton, our man in Delhi, “because the press box air conditioning is wildly excessive. I’m looking over to the bewilderingly wonky Gautam Gambhir Stand – I fear I might spend quite a lot of the game wondering what on earth the architects were taking.”
Perhaps it’s reflective of his batting in England (average 12.70, HS 38)! Oh it’s the way we tell them!
3rd over: Afghanistan 21-0 (Gurbaz 9, Ibrahim 5) Gurbaz jinks down and slices Woakes over cover … and safe. Then, next ball when woakes drops a little shorter, he waits, bends knees … and marmalises six over midwicket! He absolutely tumped that! Ach, and when Buttler again fails to collect a wide, the total grows by two, then Ibrahim cuts to point where Bairstow dives but misses the ball! Four more and 14 off the over; Woakes is under a bit of pressure here, 0-21 off two.
2nd over: Afghanistan 7-0 (Gurbaz 1, Ibrahim 1) Topley has a proper fast bowler’s barnet, doesn’t he? I’d like it a little bit shorter at the sides and longer at the back, so we get that flowing effect, but it’s still good and so is the maiden he sends down to begin with.
“Heating’s been on for a week here in Norway,” says Brendan Large, “but I dare say it’s little chillier. Anyway what has David Willey done wrong to not get a go … is it just that he’s another lefty?”
My guess is he’s viewed as a steady option who won’t let them down, when the alternatives are a little more able to force issues. At some point I need to experience proper cold – I’d love a bit of Rosenborg away following my football team – though I daresay that as soon s I was in it, I’d want to be out of it.
1st over: Afghanistan 7-0 (Gurbaz 1, Ibrahim 1) Dearie me, Woakes runs in, aborts, chucks a wide down the leg side … and then Buttler gets there but misses his catch! Five off the first ball, then a slash for one from the third and a squirt to deep backward point from the fifth. Afghanistan will take that.
Woakes, who’ll be looking for an improvement from himself, has the new globule.
It looks hotter in Delhi than in London. No need for the heating on there.
Anthem time…
Here come the teams…
What do we think about Reece Topley? Even on the slower tracks, I’d guess his pace will be more useful than Moeen’s spin, but looking at the England XI, is there a way we can get Stokes in without binning Brook? Liam Livingstone would be the man at risk, but it’d mean Woakes, Curran, Rashid, Wood and Topley bowling through, and if any went or got injured, you’d have a problem.
“Jonathan Trott, Afghanistan coach, great mate of mine,” oozes Nick Knight over live footage from the ground, resplendent in zip-up tank-top affair. Sadly there is no chyron to that effect.
Email! “Surely on the heating front,” says Tony Cunningham, “by the time your wife gets back from the pool it’ll be several degrees warmer anyway (and warmer than the pool) so you can pretend the heating has been on and she’ll never know … unless she reads what you write for The Guardian.”
This had occurred to me – and she’ll also be coming out of a car so hot it should be illegal. There is much more chance this ruse succeeds than there is she reads these words.
“He wants to prove to people how good he is and he certainly is that good,” says Zak Crawley of Dawid Malan – a statement that is philosophically unimpeachable.
Athers notes England have done well to meet Afghanistan in Delhi and Bangladesh in Dharamsala, where it doesn’t really turn. He also reckons that, had this been a match against one of the better sides, Ben Stokes would’ve played and will be good to go against South Africa on Saturday.
Teams
Afghanistan: Gurbaz, Zadran I, Shah, Shahidi (c), Nabi, Alikhil (wk), Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Ur Rahman, Ul-Haq, Farooqi.
England: Bairstow, Malan, Root, Buttler (c, wk), Brook, Livingstone, Woakes, Curran, Rashid, Wood, Topley.
Hashmatulla would’ve fielded too but now the aim is to score as many as possible, above 300 if possible – put England under pressure – then hope there’s turn for his quality spinners. Njibullah drops out, with Ikram Alikhil coming in and keeping; Zadran I is now just an oepener.
England win the toss and will field!
“No particular reason, it looks a really good wicket and we’d like to chase,” says Buttler, adding that his team are unchanged. India have played well chasing in Delhi, SA scored big too, and he wants to see England’s improvement continue.
There’s very little I love more than waking up to sport, working-day sport also being up there.
My wife’s taken our nipper swimming and advised me that, while they’re gone, the heating needs putting on. Problem being, I’m not sure I’ve got that in me so help me out: 15 October is too early for such behaviour, right?
Ben Stokes has ambled out to join his team mates in the warm-up but doesn’t look like a man who is about to play a World Cup match. Expecting England to be unchanged
— Matt Roller (@mroller98) October 15, 2023
Preamble
Generally speaking, the side that plays best in the early stages is rarely the side dancing about at the final’s final whistle – a maxim applicable across all World Cups and in all sports. Too soon! Too soon! I promise, I planned to begin like that before that.
England, though, won’t have been too agitated after losing their opening game. The holders know they know how to win and after thrashing Bangladesh they’re trucking, having once again balanced the side by dropping Moeen Ali. Perhaps.
It may be that – on the subcontinent – England end up wanting another spin option but – as they say on the subcontinent – “pace is pace”, and Reece Topley has it. Alongside which, if Jonny Bairstow, Dawid Malan, Joe Root, Jos Buttler, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid and Mark Wood can’t get you enough runs – have there ever been deeper batting line-ups than that? – then maybe you have to accept it’s just not your day. Or restore Ben Stokes to the side, definitely one of the two.
We jest. Because though one-day cricket isn’t as capricious as T20, nor as easily commandeered by one player with one performance, when so many sides have so much firepower, it’s impossible to know which of them will win a one-off match. So, though it may seem unlikely Afghanistan have enough to trouble England, you never know – and even if they don’t, they’ve more than enough to make it interesting.
Play: 2pm local, 9.30am BST
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