Afghanistan will play Pakistan in a one-off ODI at Sharjah on February 10.
The match, which will begin at 11.00 am GMT, will be the first time that Afghanistan will be up against a Test-playing nation in this format of the game. It is also Afghanistan’s first match this year.
The debutants will be a confident lot, especially of a good showing in the game. They come into the one-off encounter against neighbours with a T20 tournament win in December when they lifted the ACC T20 championships by beating Hong Kong in the final.
They will also look to put the back-to-back defeats at the hands of UAE in the 2011-12 Inter-Continental tournament out of their minds when they take on Pakistan tomorrow.
Nawroz Mangal will lead the side, which has a fine blend of pace and spin. The bowling will be led by Shapoor Zadran and off-spinning all-rounders Mangal and Mohammad Nabi will provide the balance.
Pakistan will do well not to treat this as only a warm-up game to the England series. Complacency has cost them dear in the past and they will not want to repeat the loss to Bangladesh in the 1999 World Cup.
Under Misbah-ul-haq’s captaincy, they have done a good job since the spot-fixing scandal of 2010 was revealed and will look to continue their good form. Shahid Afridi will be back into the squad after missing the Test matches – and after giving the Bangladesh Premier League a slip as well – and could be the key.
How the Afghanistan batsmen cope with the spinning trio of Afridi, Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman will be a huge deciding factor. Mohammad Shahzad and Karim Sadiq, the top-order batsman-wicket-keeper will be Afghanistan’s batsmen to look out for.
