NEW DELHI: Netherlands captain Scott Edwards won the toss and chose to bat against Afghanistan in the 34th match of the ICC Cricket World Cup at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana cricket stadium in Lucknow on Friday.
Netherlands made two changes, replacing opener Vikramjit Singh with Wesley Barresi while Roelof van der Merwe and Saqib Zulfiqar also made it to the playing XI. Afghanistan brought in Noor Ahmad in place of Naveen Ul Haq.
After winning the toss, Dutch captain Scott Edwards said, "We'll bat first. It has worked well for us. The wicket looks decent. Hopefully put on the runs and defend it. We have made one change. That's something we've spoken about, our top-order needs to make more runs. We've got Barresi coming up to the top and Vikramjit is missing out. We are still fighting for the spot in the semi-final. We have to play a lot of good cricket. As a group, that (Champions Trophy) is not something we are focusing on. That comes with potentially playing good cricket."
After losing the toss, Afghanistan skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi said, "We wanted to bat, but that doesn't matter. We need to play 100 overs of good cricket. It'll spin. We are trying to play good cricket. We are going with four spinners. Noor Ahmad is in for Naveen. A lot of support, in this WC, everyone's praying for us. We are happy for that. he focus will be on today's game."
Seeing the red and black soil and a little bit of green grass rolled in the square, former cricketers Pommie Mbangwa and Shaun Pollock reckoned in their pitch report that it will be a good surface but the advantage could be to bat first. They added that later, the pitch might break up because it's not necessarily held together. Both reckoned that dew will be a factor.
Netherlands XI: Wesley Barresi, Max ODowd, Colin Ackermann, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Scott Edwards(w/c), Bas de Leede, Saqib Zulfiqar, Logan van Beek, Roelof van der Merwe, Aryan Dutt, Paul van Meekeren
Afghanistan XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi(c), Azmatullah Omarzai, Ikram Alikhil(w), Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Noor Ahmad
