'India Have Quality in Their Top 3-4 Who Can Take on Shaheen Afridi': Ex-Opener's Big Prediction

Team India will begin their campaign at the T20 World Cup 2022 against arch-rivals Pakistan. The encounter is scheduled to take place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on October 23 and the fans will be excited for one of the epic match-ups – Shaheen Shah Afridi vs the Indian top-order.

The reason behind this anticipation is last year’s clash between the two Asian giants at the T20 World Cup 2021 in Dubai. The left-arm pacer ran through India’s top order, removing Rohit Sharma for a golden duck followed by KL Rahul (3) and Virat Kohli (51). Later, the Men in Blue lost the game by 10 wickets, suffering their first-ever defeat against the arch-rivals in a World Cup tie.

A year later, both teams will square off against each other again and former India opener Gautam Gambhir has come up with a valuable suggestion for the Men in Blue.

Speaking on Star Sports’ show ‘Game Plan’, Gambhir said the Rohit Sharma-led side shouldn’t only look to survive against Afridi, but they should also need to see a way to score runs against him.

“When it comes to Shaheen Afridi, don’t look to survive. Look to score runs from him. Because the moment you look to survive, everything becomes really small. Whether it’s your backlift, whether it’s your footwork, and obviously, in T20 cricket you can’t look to survive," Gambhir said.

“I know that he can be dangerous with the new ball, but again, irrespective, the Indian batters need to score more runs, get into better positions, and look to time the balls rather than to hit it. India will be fine because India has got the quality in their top 3 or 4 who can definitely take on Shaheen Shah Afridi," he added.

Further talking about how India’s batting should go about at Melbourne, former India left-arm pacer Irfan Pathan explained, “Look, one thing is clear. When you play at the MCG, the straight boundaries are not that big. It’s the side boundaries that are massive. Obviously, India needs to be smart, especially the batting."

“Probably, it will be difficult to hit the side boundaries, so they have to play the gaps and probably convert the twos into threes and ones into twos, because running between the wickets will be very important," Gambhir concluded.

Get the latest Cricket News, Schedule and Cricket Live Scores here