Afghanistan vs Australia Prediction: Outsiders can do it all over again

A huge game in Group B as Afghanistan and Australia battle it out for a semi-final spot in Lahore on Friday, start time 09:00, live on Sky Sports Cricket.

Jamie Pacheco is siding with Afghanistan as considerable underdogs and has an under-the-radar 5/1 pick for Australia top bat.

Afghanistan vs Australia Odds

Team News

Afghanistan

First things first, what do Afghanistan need to do in order to qualify for the semis of the Champions trophy?

A win will see them through, pure and simple. If they win and South Africa win, they’d finish second and play the winners of Group A – at this stage we don’t know if that will be India or New Zealand – with SA playing the runners-up in Group A. If they win and England win, they’d actually top the group with Australia and SA battling it out for the runner-up spot, with net run rate very much playing its part.

The bad news for Afghanistan is that a washed-out match against Australia does them no favours. Australia would automatically go through with an SA win against England quickly eliminating Rashid and co and even an England win likely to see SA go through on net run rate. So, rain is very much the Afghans’ enemy in this one.

And their win over England on Wednesday?  We could be here all day analysing all that went on but the main take-aways are that they recovered brilliantly with the bat from a poor start, Ibrahim Zadran got the biggest-ever individual score in the history of the Champions Trophy (177) while there were some extremely handy cameos with the bat, including Shahidi (40) Omarzai (41) and Nabi (40). Had one of those not fired and the result could have been very different.

With the ball, they did just enough to deny England. Omarzai (5-58) can consider himself pretty unlucky not to have got man of the match with brilliant contributions with both bat and ball, including dismissing the key man in Joe Root, and holding his nerve in the final over.

They’re likely to be unchanged unless some obvious discomfort from Farooqi in the England match means he has to sit this one out.

Possible XI:   Gurbaz, Zadran, Atal, Shah, Shahidi, Omarzai, Nabi, Naib, Rashid, Noor, Farooqi/Naveed Zadran/Ahmad.

Australia

It seems a long time ago since Australia beat England on Saturday, chasing a mammoth total to get up, thanks to excellent contributions from centurion Josh Inglis, Alex Carey, Marnus Labuschagne and Matt Short. Earlier, Ben Dwarshius was just about the pick of the bowlers with 3-66 but most went around the park on an exceptionally good wicket.

Then in midweek their match against the Proteas was washed out, which didn’t do them much harm at all. A win or a washout here will see them through. Even defeat may seem them through if England beat SA comfortably, which isn’t totally out of the equation.

And despite being a depleted side with so many players missing through injury, that England game showed that at the very least that they’re going to put a fight in any circumstances; and that goes a long way.

We didn’t even have a confirmed XI in that game against SA because there wasn’t a toss, so we don’t know what they were thinking regarding any changes.

But they’d be well-advised to pick the far more experienced and steadier Sean Abbott over Spencer Johnson.

Possible XI: Head, Inglis, Smith, Labuschagne, Inglis, Carey, Maxwell, Dwarshius, Ellis, Zampa, Abbott/Johnson.

Pitch and Conditions  

It’s the same Lahore surface that saw run-fests in England’s defeat to Australia and England’s defeat to Afghanistan.

But there’s a possibility that they use the same track, so it could be a bit more worn than for those two games, which could mean 290-300 is a more likely first innings target than 340+.

Given one of those two games was won by the chaser and the other by the side batting first and it’s hard to know what to do here but Afghanistan look a side far more suited to batting first; so that’s probably what they’ll do, if it goes their way.

1pt Back Afghanistan to win @ 11/4

First things first, are we going to get a completed game? There’s some rain forecast but the answer is: probably.

Another well-known bookmaker has a ‘completed game’ at around the 1/4 mark so even if there is some rain and even if there are some overs lost and a reduced match, we should get a result, though a reduction in overs making it a 20-30 over a side game would probably play into the hands of Australia and their bigger hitters.

But we’re happy to take our chances even if that is the case. Afghanistan are 11/4 (implied probability 26.7%) and though we argued their case at those odds against England, we didn’t actually bet them, But we will now.

The key is the absence of Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins who have guile, pace and experience that their understudies don’t.

Ideally, we’d want Afghanistan to bat first again and squeeze Australia in the chase. But we can’t have it all our own way, so we’ll take the pre-match price and hope the toss goes our way. By the way, there’s an argument to say that if there’s rain in the air and the possibility of a reduced match, we’re better off with the men in blue chasing anyway. So, losing the toss isn’t disastrous to our cause, whichever we look at it.

As an aside, don’t underestimate the belief that the Afghans will have after their England win. Stats may not account for that sort of thing, but it certainly matters.

1pt Back Matt Short to be Australia Top Batsman @ 5/1

Who can forget Glenn Maxwell’s double hundred that allowed Australia to beat Afghanistan at the last World Cup from seemingly hopeless position?

The man was batting on one leg for most of it.  I certainly remember it. Maxwell is 7/1 this time around but that would only be a price of interest if we felt the game may be reduced in overs, leading to a promotion up the order for the ‘Big Show’. But if he bats at seven, in a full game or a reduced one, that’s a huge task for him to top-score from so low down the order. So, we’ll leave it.

The value is arguably Matt Short at 5/1. His ODI numbers aren’t particularly impressive across his short ODI career in the format, but he was in good touch against England and has a brilliant T20 record so a reduction in overs, and a change in approach, would be right up his street.

The likes of Travis Head, Steve Smith, Josh Inglis and Maxwell are all better players in this format, if we’re being honest. But some of those are almost half Short’s price and none other than Head are guaranteed a bat at all, while Short will open. So that factor isn’t to be underestimated.

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers cricket and European football for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Cricket Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our cricket hub page...