New Zealand vs Afghanistan

New Zealand won all three of its matches, and Afghanistan morale is high after defeating England in the last match.

In the ODI World Cup 2023, the match will be played between New Zealand and Afghanistan today. on Tuesday 18 October. The match will take place at 2 pm at MA Chidambaram Stadium (Chepauk), Chennai. The toss will take place half an hour earlier at 1:30 pm.

 

Kane Williamson will not play due to injury

New Zealand captain Kane Williamson has fractured his thumb. New Zealand Cricket confirmed this on its official account (Twitter) on Saturday (October 14). Williamson was injured in the match against Bangladesh on Friday (13 October). Due to which he retired hurt at the score of 78 runs and returned to the pavilion.

Tom Blundell has been called in as their cover. However, Williamson will remain with the team and may return by next month. Tom Latham will captain in his absence.

Fourth match of both teams

This will be the fourth match in this World Cup for both the teams. New Zealand has won all three of its opening matches. It defeated England in the first match, Netherlands in the second and Bangladesh in the third. On the other hand, Afghanistan won one out of three matches and lost the remaining two. He had to face defeat in his first match against Bangladesh and in the second against India. In the third match, there was an upset by defeating the current champion England.

head-to-head

Talking about overall head to head, a total of 2 ODIs have been played between New Zealand and Afghanistan so far. New Zealand won both. Both the matches were played in the 2015 and 2019 World Cups. Apart from this, no ODI was played between the two teams.

New Zealand: The team won all the last 5 matches.

Afghanistan: Out of the last 5 matches, the team has won only one and lost four.

Devon Conway in form

New Zealand opener Devon Conway is the team's top scorer in the World Cup 2023. In the first match, Conway had played an unbeaten inning of 151 runs in the very first match against England. On the other hand, Matt Henry and Mitchell Santner have 8 wickets each.

Rashid returned to form

Afghanistan's star player Rashid Khan looked lackluster in the first two matches. He had 2 wickets to his name in the first 2 matches, but against England, Rashid made a brilliant comeback by taking 3 wickets. On the other hand, Rahmanullah Gurbaz played a brilliant inning of 80 runs against England.

pitch report

The pitch of MA Chidambaram Stadium proves to be helpful for spinners. A total of 25 One Day Internationals have been played in this stadium so far. The teams batting first have won 14 matches and the teams batting in the second innings have won 10 matches.

weather forecast

According to Accuweather, the temperature in Chennai on Wednesday will be around 32 to 27 degrees Celsius. It will be sunny, but there will also be some clouds. There is a 2% chance of rain.

Possible playing 11 of both teams

New Zealand:

Devon Conway, Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham (C & WK), Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Santner, Mark Chapman/Ish Sodhi, Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson, Trent Boult.

 Afghanistan:

Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Azmatullah Omarzai, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Naveen-ul-Haq, Fazalhaq Farooqi.