ODI World Cup 2023: India’s predicted XI vs Afghanistan

Team India captain Rohit Sharma has indicated that they will select players in the playing XI as per different conditions of the pitch and ground during the ongoing ODI ODI World Cup.

After having a comprehensive win against formidable Australia, the Men in Blue are getting ready to take on Afghanistan in their second match of the mega event at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The track in New Delhi is completely different than the pitch at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. As a result, India had chosen to go with three spinners in their campaign opener.

However, the pitch at the Arun Jaitley Stadium had some grass covering. It had provided some assistance to the pace bowlers in a high-scoring encounter between South Africa and Sri Lanka last week. Looking at the conditions, the Indian think tank may opt to bring in pace-bowling all-rounder Shardul Thakur into the playing 11 for this match to replace veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

Pace bowling all-rounder Shardul’s return will give them more options to choose ahead of India’s high voltage encounter against arch-rivals Pakistan in their next match at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Saturday. Apart from this change, the rest of the team is likely to remain the same.

India’s predicted XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj.