Afghanistan win toss, elect to bat against Pakistan

Afghanistan won the toss and elected to bat first against Pakistan in 36th match of the ICC Cricket World Cup at Headingley in Leeds on Saturday.

Back-to-back wins against South Africa and New Zealand have given Pakistan a chance of making the knockouts but they must beat Afghanistan and Bangladesh in their final two games and hope other results go their way to advance.

On the other hand, Afghanistan are looking to finish on a high after losing all their seven games.

Both the team will face for the first time in any World Cup match as it is the first time that war-torn Afghanistan has qualified for the mega event.

Pakistan team is left with no choice but to win this match in order to rekindle their hopes for a semi-final qualification.

Playing XIs:

Pakistan: 1 Imam-ul-Haq, 2 Fakhar Zaman, 3 Babar Azam, 4 Mohammad Hafeez, 5 Haris Sohail, 6 Sarfaraz Ahmed (capt & wk), 7 Imad Wasim, 8 Shadab Khan, 9 Mohammad Amir, 10 Wahab Riaz, 11 Shaheen Afridi

Afghanistan: 1 Gulbadin Naib (capt), 2 Rahmat Shah, 3 Hashmatullah Shahidi, 4 Asghar Afghan, 5 Samiullah Shinwari, 6 Mohammad Nabi, 7 Najibullah Zadran, 8 Ikram Alikhil (wk), 9 Rashid Khan, 10 Hamid Hassan, 11 Mujeeb Ur Rahman

Source: thedailystar