World Cup 2015 Match 17 Group A Preview: Afghanistan v Scotland

World Cup 2015 Match 17 Group A Preview: Afghanistan v Scotland:

Date : 26 Feb 2015        Time: 0330 IST
Venue:  Dunedin

The match tomorrow is of equally matched teams, both associate nations and both have something to prove.

Afghanistan
Afghanistan gave Sri Lanka the scare of this World cup when they almost defeated them. They dismissed both the openers for duck and Kumar Sangakkara for 7. If it was not for the 100 from Mahela Jayawardene, which cost him a bat and important contributions from Angelo Mathews and Thisara Perera, Afghanistan would have caused a massive upset in this World cup.
They can take heart from the performance of their bowlers especially Hamid Hassan and Shapoor Zadran, who broke Jayawardene’s bat.  They will look for their spinners to contribute and support their fast bowlers more.

Their  batting will be the biggest asset against Scottish bowling. Samiullah Shenwari, Asghar Stanikzai and Mohd. Nabi to lead the batting.

Scotland
Scotland on other hand were comprehensively beaten by England. Their batting collapsed against true fast bowling and spin. But Afghan bowling is different thing, they are not Broad, Anderson and Finn but they are a handful. Preston Mommsen, Calum MacLeod, Kyle Coetzer who top scored vs England and Richie Berrington are their batting main stays.

Bowling wise, they are good to go with a spirited performance against England by Iain Wardlaw, Richard Berrington and Josh Davey they will look forward to give a hard time to Afghan batting.

Last 5 ODIs:
AFG: L L W L L
SCO:  L W NR W L

Possible playing XI:
Scotland Team: Kyle Coetzer, Calum McLeod, Freddie Coleman, Matt Machan, Preston Mommsen (capt), Richie Berrington, Mathew Cross (wk), Josh Davey, Alasdair Evans, Majid Haq, Iain Wardlaw.

Afghanistan: Javed Ahmadi, Nawroz Mangal, Asghar Stanikzai, Samiullah Shenwari, Mohammad Nabi (capt), Najibullah Zadran, Afsar Zazai (wk), Aftab Alam, Dawlat Zadran, Hamid Hassan, Shapoor Zadran