After a convincing victory over Australia in their opening Cricket World Cup 2023 match, India made a big change in their playing XI for the second match, swapping Ravichandran Ashwin with Shardul Thakur in the team. After India skipper Rohit Sharma announced the news at the time of toss, the legendary Sunil Gavaskar couldn’t hide his frustration seeing Ashwin being sacrificed once again. In a chat with the broadcaster, Gavaskar admitted that he isn’t sure what Ashwin has done wrong to be in such a situation.
In fact, Gavaskar also rued the absence of Mohammed Shami from India’s playing XI, especially considering the fact that he had taken a hat-trick against the same team in 2019.
“Once again Ashwin misses out, I don’t know what he has done wrong. He is used to being left out of the team. I thought what Shami had done against them (Afghanistan) in 2019, getting a hat-trick, he would get a go,” Gavaskar said on Star Sports.
India lost the toss and were asked by Afghanistan skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi to field first.
“We were looking to bat second. We saw the amount of dew last evening. Don’t think the wicket will change much. Need to bowl well and need to come back and bat better. We were under pressure (against Australia) to start with, but KL and Kohli batted well, they were magnificent and we take a lot of pride in our performance. It was a good game for us, hopefully we can repeat that and keep the momentum going forward. Ashwin misses out, Shardul Thakur comes in for him,’ Rohit said after the toss.
Barring the one change that saw Ashwin making way for Shardul, India didn’t make any change with the rest of the line-up.
Afghanistan Playing XI:Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi(c), Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Naveen-ul-Haq, Fazalhaq Farooqi
India Playing XI:Rohit Sharma(c), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
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