Teams:
Afghanistan (Playing XI): Ibrahim Zadran(c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Sediqullah Atal, Darwish Rasooli, Noor ul Rahman, Azmatullah Omarzai, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Abdullah Ahmadzai
India (Playing XI): Sanju Samson(w), Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer(c), Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Yash Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah
Pitch and conditions: We're looking at a pitch that was used for the first game, and very similar look to the pitch that we had for the first game. And I think this one plays better than the other one, you think? Yes, it did, because it was possibly fresh, and we spoke about this strip. This is pitch number six, that was pitch number four, which is closer to the pavilion. And we did mention these kind of marks in game number two, and we saw the dryness when the spinners bowled. Even when the seamers held the ball slightly back of a length and bowled the slower ones, you could see some help for them. I see this pitch playing like the one which we saw the other day, the second game. Just a reminder for viewers, for batters batting on the pavilion side. Now when you play on this pitch, the leg boundary, the on-side boundary gets really long, and that's saying a lot. Significantly, I would say. Yeah, relatively longer, so that is a bonus for a guy who's bowling spin from this side and you've got a right-hander there. Yeah, absolutely, and I think that is where the captains have been pretty good. That's what the track record says, and that's what the captains have done. Lots of players coming back from injury. You want that continuity. And also because Abhishek has just found form, Sanju Samson got runs, so it would have been unfair to drop him. But would have been delightful to watch that young man (Vaibhav Sooryavanshi) on a pitch like this with a short boundary on that side. So for the moment, India doing something different. They bat first, which is going to be fun to watch. - Murali Kartik, Sanjay Manjrekar.
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