It will be a different game for England when they face unpredictable Afghanistan Super 10 match World Twenty20, here today at Feroz Shah Kotla stadium. A team who has shown such excellent fighting spirit against strong oppositions with likes of Sri lanka and South Africa in WT20 tournament.
England, on the other side after their stunning victory over South Africa, where they chased down 230, suffered six-wicket defeat when they met West Indies. England now faces a must-win situation against the Afghans.
And even England start as favourites against Afghanistan, England would be aware that their bowlers would have to put up an improved performance.
The 2010 champions' under-fire bowlers and fielders will be up against a potent Afghanistan batting line-up that gave South Africa a scare in their last match.
The performance of England's opening pace duo of David Willey and Reece Topley can be termed horrendous against West Indies the other day as they sprayed the ball on both sides of the wicket to concede huge runs. The likes of Chris Jordan and Ben Stokes too were very expensive.
England's batting has been satisfactory so far in the tournament with Root leading from the front. However, they need a collective batting effort from the likes of Alex Hales, Jason Roy, Stokes, Jos Buttler and skipper Eoin Morgan to make themselves a strong force in the tournament.
With a win and a loss under their belt, England are currently lying fourth in the five-team group and a win will definitely propel Morgan's men up in standings.
Minnows Afghanistan, on the other hand, has lost both their matches against Sri lanka and South Africa. But despite the defeats, the Afghans, who advanced to the Super 10 stage for the first time, showed great character in those two matches.
led by Asghar Stanikzai, the Afghan batting department, which also has Mohammad Shahzad and batsman Mohammed Nabi, crossed 150-run mark in both the matches, but it their inexperienced bowling unit which needs to come to the party to hand their team maiden win in the event.
SQUAD: England: England: Jason Roy, James Vince, Alex Hales, Joe Root, Moeen Ali, Eoin Morgan (captain), Jos Buttler (wk), Ben Stokes, Sam Billings, David Willey, liam Plunkett, Reece Topley, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid, liam Dawson.
Afghanistan: Asghar Stanikzai (captain), Mohammad Shahzad (wk), Noor Ali Zadran, Usman Ghani, Mohammad Nabi, Karim Sadiq, Shafiqullah Shafiq, Rashid Khan, Ameer Hamza, Dawlat Zadran, Shapoor Zadran, Gulbadin Naib, Samiullah Shenwari, Najibullah Zadran, Hamid Hassan.