Toss Afghanistan chose to bowl vs India

India handed fast bowler Prince Yadav a debut ODI cap as Afghanistan won the toss and elected to field in the second ODI. Both teams made wholesale changes, three each to be exact, in Lucknow.

Apart from handing Prince a debut, India also brought Yashavi Jaiswal and Kuldeep Yadav into their XI. Harsh Dubey, Prasidh Krishna and Nitish Kumar Reddy were the players missing out from the opening ODI. India captain Shubman Gill said Reddy was unavailable for selection because of a sore left thigh.

Prince has plenty of experience of playing at Ekana Stadium having played here for Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL for the last two seasons.

Afghanistan also handed an ODI debut to batter Darwish Rasooli, with left-arm spinner Nangeyalia Kharote and fast bowler Bilal Sami also slotting in. Out went Mohammad Nabi, who is sick, Azmatullah Omarzai, who was injured in training, and fast bowler Ziaur Rahman.

“The wicket looks fresh and it will be spinning in the first innings. In the last game, we played well, but we were missing in the partnership and we threw our wickets. Hopefully the boys will learn from this,” Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi said at the toss.

Afghanistan trail the three-match ODI series 0-1, having gone down by seven wickets in the rain-curtailed 25-over-a-side game in Dharamsala. It is a massive change for the teams from damp and cool Dharamsala to hot and humid Lucknow, where temperatures are expected to touch the 40-degree Celsius mark. Due to the heat, there will be three drinks breaks during the first innings at 2.30pm, 3.30pm and 4.30pm local time.

Afghanistan: 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 2 Ibrahim Zadran, 3 Sediqullah Atal, 4 Rahmat Shah, 5 Hashmatullah Shahidi (capt), 6 Darwish Rasooli, 7 Rashid Khan, 8 Nangeyala Kharoti, 9 AM Ghazanfar, 10 Mohammad Saleem, 11 Bilal Sami

India: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 3 Shubman Gill (capt), 4 Ishan Kishan (wk), 5 Shreyas Iyer, 6 KL Rahul, 7 Washington Sundar, 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Gurnoor Brar, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Prince Yadav