Indian pace bowling all-rounder Shardul Thakur replaced spinner Ravichandran Ashwin for the IND vs AFG clash at CWC 2023 in New Delhi on October 11.

India have named a solitary change for their second 2023 World Cup game. Ravichandran Ashwin, who had a good outing against Australia with figures of 10-34-1, was made to sit out. Thakur came in as his replacement. The ‘Men in Blue’ had a jailbreak in Chennai as they managed to pull off a win by six wickets after being reduced to 2-3 at the start. A clinical 165-run partnership between KL Rahul and Virat Kohli steadied the ship.

Rohit Sharma lost the toss and India were put to bowl by rival captain Hashmatullah Shahidi. However, the India skipper confirmed that they always wanted to bat second considering the dew factor. He expects the Kohli-Rahul duo to continue with the good form.

Sunil Gavaskar, part of the broadcasting team, wasn’t too happy with Ashwin’s omission. “I don’t know what Ashwin has done wrong. He’s used to being left out of the team”.

Speaking at the toss, Rohit said: “We were looking to bat second. We saw the amount of dew last evening. Don’t think the wicket will change much. Need to bowl well and need to come back and bat better.”

“We were under pressure (against Australia) to start with, but KL Rahul and Virat Kohli batted well, they were magnificent and we take a lot of pride in our performance. It was a good game for us, hopefully, we can repeat that and keep the momentum going forward. R Ashwin misses out and Shardul Thakur comes in for him.”

Looking at the high-scoring previous match in New Delhi, it was expected that India would go with an extra pacer. Shardul Thakur, who has some batting credibility, got the nod ahead of veteran Mohammed Shami.

Afghanistan have named an unchanged team from their curtain-raiser match against Bangladesh.

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