{"id":465938,"date":"2026-02-08T06:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T06:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/465938\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T06:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T06:50:07","slug":"afghanistan-pack-their-xi-with-spinners-ask-new-zealand-to-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/465938\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan pack their XI with spinners, ask New Zealand to field"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toss Afghanistan opt to bat vs New Zealand <\/p>\n

Afghanistan<\/a> captain Rashid Khan<\/a> won the toss and opted to bat<\/a> against New Zealand<\/a> in a day game in Chennai at the T20 World Cup 2026<\/a>. The 11am start and the fact that dew is a non-factor as a result may have influenced Afghanistan’s decision at the toss.<\/p>\n

Rashid was among Afghanistan’s three spinners along with Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi. There was no room for left-arm wristspinner Noor Ahmad, who has enjoyed success at Chepauk with Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the IPL.<\/p>\n

Ziaur Rahman Sharifi, who replaced the injured Naveen-ul-Haq, and left-arm quick Fazalhaq Farooqi were picked as the two frontline seamers. They will be assisted by seam-bowling allrounders Azmatullah Omarzai and Gulbadin Naib.<\/p>\n

New Zealand, on the other hand, had just one specialist spinner in captain Mitchell Santner<\/a>. There was no space for wristspinner Ish Sodhi, with New Zealand going pace-heavy on a surface with some grass. Matt Henry will lead the seam attack which includes Lockie Ferguson and Jacob Duffy.<\/p>\n

New Zealand’s No. 3, Rachin Ravindra, who can also pitch in with left-arm fingerspin, has recovered sufficiently from an illness to return to the XI. Michael Bracewell, who is nursing a calf injury, though, missed the cut. Finn Allen, New Zealand’s premier opener, recovered from a shoulder niggle, which had kept him out of the warm-up fixture against USA, to slot back in at the top along with Tim Seifert.<\/p>\n

The Chepauk recently underwent a makeover with the entire outfield being dug up and relaid. Though the pitches were untouched – the venue has not hosted a competitive game since IPL 2025 in April – its conditions are an unknown quantity, with CSK also suggesting they have struggled to read the surfaces of late.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan: 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 2 Ibrahim Zadran, 3 Sediqullah Atal, 4 Darwish Rasooli, 5 Azmatullah Omarzai, 6 Gulbadin Naib, 7 Mohammad Nabi, 8 Rashid Khan (capt), 9 Fazalhaq Farooqi, 10 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 11 Ziaur Rahman Sharifi<\/p>\n

New Zealand: 1 Finn Allen, 2 Tim Seifert (wk), 3 Rachin Ravindra, 4 Glenn Phillips, 5 Mark Chapman, 6 Daryl Mitchell, 7 Mitchell Santner (capt), 8 Jimmy Neesham, 9 Matt Henry, 10 Lockie Ferguson, 11 Jacob Duffy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toss Afghanistan opt to bat vs New Zealand Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan won the toss and opted to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-465938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}