England will resume their title defence in the 2023 Cricket World Cup on Sunday when they take on Afghanistan in match 13 of 48 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.
With the table now starting to take shape, England will come into this match in fifth place with two points, while Afghanistan are at the foot of the table and are yet to get off the mark.
Match preview
© Reuters
England came into the tournament as the second favourite to claim this year's title and were carrying excellent form with four consecutive wins under their belts and fresh off a convincing 3-1 series win over New Zealand.
Therefore, the Three Lions would likely have been confident heading into their first match of the World Cup against the Kiwis, but the Black Caps had other ideas and handed their opponents a fairly comprehensive beating by nine wickets and with 82 balls to spare.
While England's remarkable batting style has been discussed at length over the last year or so, that match arguably showed where their weakness lies, as without the likes of Stuart Broad and James Anderson, they only managed to take a single wicket in the match.
Still, the positive that England could take from the match was the performance of Joe Root, who top-scored for his side with 77 and added another 82 in their win over Bangladesh on Tuesday, while Dawid Malan made the lion's share of the contribution with 140 in just 107 balls.
Indeed, England looked much more like the side we know them to be of late against the Tigers, but they will need to maintain that level of performance with big games against South Africa, Sri Lanka, and India to come after this one.
© Reuters
Meanwhile, Afghanistan were one of the biggest outsiders coming into the 2023 CWC, having lost 3-0 to Pakistan in August and then coming up just short in their final Asia Cup group stage ODI match against Sri Lanka.
After losing the toss and being asked to bat in their first match against Bangladesh, Afghanistan only managed 156 runs before they were bowled out, and Bangladesh chased down the small total with a little over 15 overs to spare.
While Hashmatullah Shahidi's side were no match for India in their second match on Wednesday, there were a lot more positives they would have taken from their performance than from the first game.
The skipper played an excellent innings of 80 from 88 balls and was supported well by Azmatullah Omarzal, who made 62 in 69, while Rashid Khan showed his class for the first time in the tournament, bagging two wickets.
Unfortunately, the fixtures do not get much easier from here on for Afghanistan, and with England starting to show life with the bat, they will need a huge bowling effort in this one, or they could end up on the wrong side of a big defeat.
Team News
Jonny Bairstow, Malan and Root gave England an excellent platform in their last match against Bangladesh, and we are unlikely to see much change in the top order for a while.
Reece Topley was brought in for that match and possibly cemented his place, taking 4/43 in his 10 overs, but Matthew Mott may be tempted to give Mark Wood another run in this match, possibly in place of Sam Curran.
Despite not getting a wicket against India, Naveen-ul-Haq was the most economical bowler for Afghanistan and should resume as the first change, while they will be hoping for more from Mohammad Nabi, who has been out of sorts in this competition.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran have made decent starts in the last two matches and are likely to be given one more outing before Jonathan Trott considers bringing in the likes of Riaz Hassan at the top of the order.
England squad: Jos Buttler (c), Moeen Ali, Gus Atkinson, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes, Reece Topley, David Willey, Mark Wood, Chris Woakes
Afghanistan squad: Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Riaz Hassan, Rahmat Shah, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Ikram Alikhil, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Noor Ahmad, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Abdul Rahman, Naveen ul Haq
Series so far
England
Match One: England lost by 9 wickets
England - 282/9 (50)
New Zealand - 283/1 (36.2)
Match Two: England won by 137 runs
England - 364/9 (50)
Bangladesh - 227 (48.2)
Afghanistan
Match One: Afghanistan lost by 6 wickets
Afghanistan - 156 (37.2)
Bangladesh - 158/4 (34.4)
Match Two: Afghanistan lost by 8 wickets
Afghanistan - 272/8 (50)
India 273/2 (35)
We say: England to win
England cannot afford to slip up again in the early stages of the tournament, or they could find themselves with a huge mountain to climb later on, especially with the likes of New Zealand, India and South Africa looking very good so far. Afghanistan will give it their all as usual in this match, but we feel England should claim an easy victory.
