When: Sri Lanka vs Afghanistan, Game 1, Asia Cup 2022, 6:00 PM local, 7:30 PM IST
Where: Dubai International Stadium
What to expect: For teams to want to chase. In the 2021 T20 World Cup, 12 out of the 13 games in Dubai were won while batting second and that included the all-important final between Australia and New Zealand. It’s set to be a hot evening, with temperatures forecast around 36 degrees.
T20I Head to Head: Sri Lanka 1-0 Afghanistan. The lone game was at the 2016 T20 World Cup in India, when Sri Lanka won the game at the Eden Gardens by six wickets.
Team Watch:
Sri Lanka
Injury/Availability Concerns: Dushmantha Chameera is no longer part of the squad owing to a calf injury.
Tactics & Matchups: Since January 2020, Sri Lanka have used 11 players as openers across 33 games but the pair only averages 19 and scores runs at a strike-rate of 112. That’s not going to cut it against Afghanistan’s pacers, who have taken more wickets than the side’s spinners for the first time since 2016 (which was Rashid Khan’s first full year in the national team).
Probable XI:Danushka Gunathilaka, Pathum Nissanka (wk), Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Charith Asalanka, Dhananjaya de Silva, Dasun Shanaka (c), Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana, Chamika Karunaratne, Jeffrey Vandersay, Asitha Fernando
Afghanistan
Injury/Availability Concerns: None to report so far
Tactics & Matchups:The biggest challenge in front of Afghanistan will be Dasun Shanaka, who has come into his own in the last few months. Since January 2022, he has scored 308 runs in 11 games, including two fifties, and made them at a strike-rate of over 145. His battle with Rashid will be one to watch out for.
Probable XI: Hazratullah Zazai, Najibullah Zadran, Ibrahim Zadran, Usman Ghani, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Mohammad Nabi (c), Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Naveen-ul-Haq, Karim Janat, Noor Ahmad
