Having confirmed their Super 4 berths, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan will be looking to start afresh as they look to strengthen their bid to finish among the top two for a place in the Asia Cup final.
While Afghanistan qualified for the Super four by registering two successive victories, Sri Lanka had to overcome Bangladesh in a tense contest to progress further.
They’ll be hoping to take confidence from an improved batting performance to counter the spin challenge that Afghanistan bring to the table.
Afghanistan, on the other hand, have been well served by their top order and Najibullah Zadran has led the way with consistency and dynamic batting at 4/5. Since 2020, Najibullah has scored 614 runs at an average of 40.93 and a strike rate of 151.6, with five fifties. With Ibrahim Zadran assigned the anchor’s role and the rest having the liberty to play a positive brand of cricket, Afghanistan have a settled batting line-up to take on Sri Lanka’s relatively inexperienced pace lineup. Afghanistan will also take confidence from their opening night win over the same opposition.
They absolutely hammered Sri Lanka that night bowling them out for just 105 and then proceeding to chase that down inside 11 overs. Sri Lanka’s campaign was hanging in the balance post that defeat, from which they managed to recover. But now that they get another crack at Afghanistan, will they redeem themselves?
Spin played a major role in the previous game in Sharjah and it could continue to do so for the Super 4 opener. With both teams having quality slow bowlers in their sides, it will come down to how well the batters handle them. Barring India’s win against Hong Kong, teams batting second have emerged victorious so far in the Asia Cup, which makes it an obvious choice for the captain winning the toss.
