CWC 2019: Strengths and weaknesses of each team
ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 is about to get underway and the warm-up games are going on in full flow. The teams are taking their time to get their strongest playing XI settled and get all the wrinkles and doubts ironed out.
The first match of the World Cup on May 30th will be played between the hosts England and South Africa. Each team will be getting 2 warm-up fixtures before the tournament begins and judging by the current makeup of many sides, it's expected that by analyzing the players' performances in these matches, their team management will finalize a starting XI for the tournament.
This will also be the time for teams to experiment something new and for the oppositions to observe the game of other teams before the league starts so that they can plan accordingly. It helps to analyze what the strengths and weaknesses of a side are.
Each team will be looking to analyze the conditions and their strengths and weaknesses before they start their respective campaigns.
Let's take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of each team.
#10 Afghanistan
Strengths: Afghanistan's biggest strength is undoubtedly their spin trio of Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi and Mujeeb Ur Rahman. The three of them had rather contrasting fortunes in the first warm-up game against Pakistan. Mohammad Nabi will be a key player in Afghanistan's World Cup campaign because the sun-baked England pitches are showing a liking for off-spin and Nabi got a lot of turn in the first warm-up game.
Rashid Khan had many Pakistan batsmen on edge in the warm-up tie and picked up 2 wickets while Mujeeb was quite expensive with the ball going wicketless.,
These 3 spinners have received the maximum exposure out of all the Afghanistan players, having played among the top players in the world in the top leagues. Hence they will be the main strength for Afghanistan in this World Cup.
Weaknesses: While Afghanistan's dominant performance against Pakistan might leave no room for spotting any weakness, they do have a pretty prominent one.
The lack of effectiveness from their pace bowlers has hurt Afghanistan and despite having close to 5 pacers in their playing XI, they weren't able to match the efforts of the 2 spinners in the side. The pacers have been forever expensive and none of their pacers have played in any big league where they rub shoulders with experienced players from the world.
They have leaked a lot of runs in whatever stage they have bowled in and against top oppositions, they have failed to pick up enough wickets. The Afghans missed a trick by omitting Shapoor Zadran from the squad and now the pace attack lacks steam and intent.
Afghanistan need to have a harsh word in with their pacers to hit consistent lines, stem the run flow and create more wicket-taking opportunities than what they have done so far.