Afghanistan v England: Champions Trophy cricket

Key events

6th over: Afghanistan 21-0 (Ibrahim 8, Rahmat 0) Wood bangs one in short and Ibrahim leans back and pokes at it. The blistering pace on the ball means it carries all the way for six, beating Archer at deep third. A quite remarkable (and lucky) shot. Wood won’t mind. He’s got it on a string and is terrorising the Afghan batters with some delicious shape away to the right hander and extreme gas. Two beauties would have found the edge of better players.

5th over: Afghanistan 15-2 (Ibrahim 2, Rahmat 0) Two in the over means England are all on top. First the shape into the right hander for the first scalp, but the second was a consequence of the fuller ball holding it’s line, duping Sediq into playing for the swing.

WICKET! Sediq lbw Archer 4 (Afghanistan 15-2)

Three reds and he’s gone! Sediq was convinced he’d hit it, but he actually thwacked his own pad with his bat as he looked to steer this straight one through midwicket. Fell over his front leg and was beaten for pace. Having been clipped for four by the lefty two balls earlier, Archer deserves credit for sticking with that full length. Big Jof is on a roll!

Joel Wilson has stuck his finger up, new batter Sediq has been struck on the pads by Archer but he reviews. Is this two in the over for Jof?

WICKET! Gurbaz b Archer 6 (Afghanistan 11-1)

50 ODI wickets for Archer! Finally Archer gets his in-swinger outside the line of off-stump. It’s almost a half-volley but Gurbaz’s feet are static as he prods away from his body, catching the ball with an inside edge that proves his undoing. A soft dismissal from the batter’s point of view but Archer won’t care about that. England are on the board.

Afghanistan’s Rahmanullah Gurbaz reacts after losing his wicket. Photograph: Akhtar Soomro/Reuters

4th over: Afghanistan 11-0 (Gurbaz 6, Ibrahim 2) Wood is in the groove here. Delicious arcing shape away from the right hander off a full length at serious pace. An absolute jaffa beats Gurbaz’s edge. A half-volley is half-bunted by Ibrahim for a single in the covers and both batters steer singles down to deep third. Wood finishes with a trademark move by falling over in his follow through as he strays down leg; a leg-bye off Gurbaz’s hip to close out the over.

3rd over: Afghanistan 7-0 (Gurbaz 5, Ibrahim 0) Archer keeps hooping it in but it’s not dangerous. Gurbaz takes a big swipe at one and gets a piece of it, but Rashid down at fine leg does well to save the boundary with a diving stop. Just two runs. There’s an appeal for a strangle down the leg side, but it’s off Gurbaz’s pad. Jof still struggling to find a consistently probing area.

There’s a bit of a disparity between the scorecards on Cricinfo and Sky. The former has Ibrahim on 1, the latter on 0 (must have assumed it was a leg-bye in the first over). I’ll go with the latter as it’s the one I’m watching.

2nd over: Afghanistan 5-0 (Gurbaz 3, Ibrahim 1) Wood from the other end. Good wheels early, edging past 90 mph. Lovely shape away from the right hander and the high speed means Ibrahim is prodding at it from the crease. Gurbaz sneaks a quick single with Salt hitting the stumps with a tumbling dive forward, but the batters are home safe. Tidy start from Wood.

1st over: Afghanistan 4-0 (Gurbaz 2, Ibrahim 1) Archer’s first ball is steered down to deep third for a single by Gurbaz. The bowler then tightens his line, getting one to nip off a tricky length and cramp Ibrahim. Interesting field; a very backward point as well as a man catching in front of point. But the shape in allows Ibrahim to glove a single down to fine leg. Another drifts down leg – Jof hasn’t quite found his radar – and the final delivery is tucked to deep backward square.

Right then, Gurbaz is taking guard, Archer is tossing the ball between his hands. We’re ready to go!

More from Ali:

He won’t be adding to it today, having ticked England off his hit list during the 2023 World Cup, but in order here are the 45 (!) countries Mohammad Nabi has beaten during his incredible career: Bahrain, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iran, Thailand, Nepal, UAE, Japan, the Bahamas, Botswana, Jersey, Fiji, Tanzania, Italy, Hong Kong, Argentina, Papua New Guinea, Cayman Islands, Oman, Denmark, Bermuda, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, China, Namibia, Singapore, Canada, USA, Kenya, Pakistan, Trinidad & Tobago, Bhutan, Maldives, Barbados, Uganda, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Australia.

Joe Root, by comparison, has beaten 12.

Anthems now. Conditions look decent. Not a huge crowd yet, but as Ali said, it is a work day. Hopefully it fills up later.

Can England rally round their “brilliant leader” as Joe Root called him?

Is Livingstone living on a prayer?

Yes, says John Starbuck:

Hi. Unless he produces a whizzo performance today, I suspect Livingstone will be omitted from Saturday’s game, in favour of the (now) extra spinner. What do you reckon?

I’m a fan of Livingstone. Bats, bowls, gun fielder. But yes, he needs a show today.

All the chat on Sky in the build up has focussed on the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan and they’re not pulling punches.

Nasser Hussain – who was skipper when England chose to boycott a game against Zimbabwe at the 2003 World Cup – and Michael Atherton are very strong on this.

“The game deserves better leadership,” says Atherton. “The Afghan women deserve better leadership.”

Both former skippers are steadfast that this game should not have gone ahead (unless I’m reading them wrong) and that England should have shown some backbone. Got to say I fully agree with them.

Kudos, chaps.

Afghanistan team

No changes from the side that lost to South Africa.

Zadran, Gurbaz (wk), Atal, Shah, Shahidi (c), Omarzai, Nabi, Naib, Khan, Ahmad, Farooqi.

England team

Jamie Overton comes into the fold as the seam bowling all-rounder.

Salt, Duckett, Smith (wk), Root, Brook, Buttler (cap), Livingstone, Overton, Archer, Rashid, Wood.

Afghanistan win the toss and bat

Well that’s a surprise. All the talk before the toss was around how Afghanistan would’ve been keen to bowl, but there you go. England will do the honours with the ball first up.

We’ve got our first email… and it’s none other than Guy Hornsby:

Morning Daniel. I hope you’ve got your white whale South Africa shirt ready for their next game. As for England, helped by the weather, I’m not sure it’ll mean much. We can, should, and probably will win today. As gutted as I am for Carse, I think Overton’s variations will give us more options today. But Afghanistan are a serious team now and we can’t expect to win. We need to be ruthless and we need to play the situation, or we could fall flat on our faces. So much more needed from this team to get anywhere. Because we won’t stand a chance against SA if we don’t play better.”

Good news on the shirt front. I’ve got it! Cost me a pretty penny, but worth it.

Agree that Afghanistan are a serious team. They’re certainly better than what they produced against the Saffas. England will have to be sharp today.

Good news on the Ali Martin-laptop front.

All relatively friendly and got resolved soon after. Wasn’t like they were pointing them directly at us…

Side note from me, it’s really great to see Pakistan hosting a major(ish) tournament again. I know they’ve been knocked out, and I know they’ve had to play India ‘away” and I know there are issues the two south-Asian giants playing each, and I know there are a million things that our sport gets wrong, but this is at least a crumb of comfort. The crowds have been great (at least in the games I’ve watched) and the cricket’s been decent too.

Our man Ali Martin is at the Gaddafi Stadium, dealing with all sorts in Lahore, including security guards with machine guns who insist that laptops aren’t allowed in the ground (hopefully that’s all sorted, otherwise you’ll have to call in your copy):

Curious as to size of the crowd given it’s a working day, although walked past a fair few guys in Afghan shirts, face paints etc

There’s more than just a Champions Trophy semi-final spot on the line for Jos Buttler. He admits that his captaincy is in jeapardy.

Lose today, and he might not wear the armband again once the team returns from Pakistan.

Preamble

Daniel Gallan

Sound the klaxon – we’ve got a MUST-WIN contest on our hands. The equation is simple. Loser goes home. Winner stays on with a shot at the semis to come.

England should win it, really. They’re fresh from posting a monster total against Australia (sure they lost, but that doesn’t mean their score of 351-8 wasn’t sizeable). And Afghanistan, despite all their advances in recent years, were pretty poor against South Africa, stumbling to a 107-run loss in their opening game.

The cricket, of course, is just one strand to today’s narrative. This fixture has been wrapped up in political tension ever since there were calls for England to boycott the game in response to the gender apartheid taking place in Afghanistan. Those calls were rejected and the show goes on.

England’s former No. 3 stalwart and now Afghanistan’s coach, Jonathan Trott, has defended his players, but they need to do their bit with bat and ball. Can they turn controversy into rocket fuel? Or will England roar back to set up a showdown with South Africa on Saturday?

We’ll find out when things get going at 9am UK time, 1pm in Lahore.

Toss, teams and further updates to follow.

If you’d like to get in touch and share your thoughts, please drop me a mail.