The second leg of the double header of action at the T20 World Cup on Monday takes us to Guyana for the late game as we return to Group C to see the dark horses of Afghanistan taking on the debutants Uganda.
This is seen as the group of death with West Indies and New Zealand in it so Afghanistan will know if they want to qualify they can’t afford to slip up here. There is an argument that Uganda won just by being here so with nothing to lose they will hope to be dangerous.
Afghanistan
There is a quiet optimism around Afghanistan heading into this competition. There are two reasons for that. The first is that slowly but surely there is a realisation that they might just be getting ideal conditions to perform to their optimum and the second reason is that they went much better than expected at the 50 over World Cup last year and look to have a side which could be even more dangerous in the 20 over sphere.
The negative is that Afghanistan are still relatively new to global events but they have a squad filled with players who have been on the franchise circuit and with three or four really good spinners and a couple of seamers who are clever in these sorts of conditions, Afghanistan will be looking for a really positive start to the tournament. If they can find a couple of batters to have an excellent month then they could challenge winning the entire competition.
Uganda
The African side of Uganda won’t have winning the tournament in their sights. They probably won’t have winning the group as part of their plans given the stage they are at in their development. Their primary aim will be to be competitive in all four matches that they play, give a couple of the big teams a scare and maybe look to come out on top against Papua New Guinea when they meet. If they do that this will be a respectable showing for them. Anything more than that would surpass expectations.
Uganda certainly won’t be disappointed to get their campaign underway in Guyana given that they could field three spinners. The wicket here is generally slow and does turn at this time of year so that can keep the Africans interested but if they are going to have any chance in this match they are going to need to play the Afghanistan mystery spinners well. That tends to be the undoing of the Associate sides but if they can go well against the spin they would be in a position to make Afghanistan nervous at least.
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Team News
Afghanistan are expected to play a number of their all-rounders which would mean that there is no place in the side for Noor Ahmad. Najibullah Zadran could be a key batter as a leftie against the Uganda spinners.
Uganda are also expected to load their side up with all-rounders to give them as much batting depth as possible. Brian Masaba would be one of those as the captain while Henry Ssenyondo has a decent reputation which he will want to enhance here.
Betting
These sorts of matches between the established and the associate are never easy to bet on but that is especially the case here in Guyana where the pitches can be questionable to say the least. Clearly Afghanistan are warm favourites to win the match and I would be surprised if they don’t but you’re not getting very rich backing them and the handicap lines are pretty large so not for the first time in this competition I’ll head to the performance markets for a bet on the game.
The performance that I like the look of is that of Azmatullah Omarzai where the line of 32.5 points looks on the low side for a guy who will be heavily involved in the match. He is likely to bowl a good number of his four overs and in the main he comes out at four for Afghanistan with the bat. He is someone who will be in decent positions in the field as well so he is definitely going to be involved throughout. He scored 48 in a warm up game with Scotland last week and took 4/9 in a T20I with Ireland back in March. This line looks too low to me.
Tips
Back A.Omarzai’s Performance – Over 32.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
