CWC 2023: Netherlands win toss, elect to bat first against Afghanistan; Noor Ahmad replaces Naveen

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India]: Netherlands’ Scott Edwards won the toss and decided to bat first against Hashmatullah Shahidi’s Afghanistan in the 34th match of the ODI World Cup 2023 at Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on Friday.

Afghanistan will be looking forward to clinching a win against the Dutch side to keep their hope of moving into the semis of the ODI World Cup 2023. On the other hand, the Netherlands will try to continue their winning streak and win their third match of the tournament.

Speaking at the toss, Scott Edwards said that since it has worked earlier they will be batting first against Afghanistan.

“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,” Edwards said.

On the other hand, Hashmatullah Shahidi said that they were looking to bat first but that doesn’t matter. He also confirmed that Noor Ahmad will be replacing Naveen-ul-Haq.

“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,” Shahidi said.

Afghanistan playing XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi (C), Azmatullah Omarzai, Ikram Alikhil (Wk), Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Noor Ahmad.

Netherlands playing XI: Wesley Barresi, Max ODowd, Colin Ackermann, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Scott Edwards (Wk/C), Bas de Leede, Saqib Zulfiqar, Logan van Beek, Roelof van der Merwe, Aryan Dutt, Paul van Meekeren.

The match between Netherlands and Afghanistan will square off at 2:00 PM IST.