Afghanistan look for fix to batting frailties as they seek consolation win

Overview

Afghanistan v West Indies, 3rd ODI
Ekana International Cricket Stadium, Lucknow
Monday, 11 November; 02:00pm local, 08:30am GMT

While Afghanistan's bowling attack has continued to impress, their frailties in the batting department have shown no signs of letting up. The defeat in the second one-day international extended their losing streak to 11 games and that will be a source of frustration.

The batting woes are not for a shortage of talent. There are several promising prospects, who do make a sizeable contribution every now and again, but consistency has eluded most of them. Those tendencies were all too visible during their fruitless World Cup campaign and have shown themselves in their two defeats to West Indies at Lucknow's Ekana International Stadium, which is the venue for all matches on this tour.

Afghanistan will hope for a collective performance as they look to avoid a clean sweep against West Indies, who will look to continue playing smart cricket as they have in the previous two games.

Afghanistan will especially seek better returns from their openers Hazratullah Zazai and Javed Ahmadi, who have simply struggled to put up a noteworthy score in the two games so far.

West Indies, who have won their first series since 2014, will sure be pleased with how Kieron Pollard's full-time ODI captaincy tenure has commenced and will be keen to make it that much memorable by winning in the final game as well. Their bowlers, especially Roston Chase, who has picked up 5/61 across two matches, have been brilliant and will look to keep Afghanistan from building partnerships as has been the case in the last two ODIs.

Remember the last time

Afghanistan's bowlers kept making inroads and restricted West Indies to 247/9 despite half-centuries from Evin Lewis and Nicholas Pooran. The West Indies bowlers too bowled with discipline to and had Afghanistan on the mat at 109/5. Najibullah Zadran and Mohammad Nabi kept the side in the hunt with a valiant 68-run stand for the sixth wicket, but once Chase dismissed Zadran for 56, the procession o quick wickets resumed and Afghanistan slipped to a 47-run defeat.

What they said

Rashid Khan, Afghanistan captain: Najibullah and Nabi put on a good partnership together, but it is important for players in those situations to take us homne. We have the talent and we need to believe in ourselves. We're lacking the belief and we'll be a better side once we get that.

Kieron Pollard, West Indies captain: We just want to soak in the feeling of winning a series. We're going to enjoy the series win, but then we get back to business come day after.

Conditions

There has been some turn on offer and the pitch has been a tad sluggish but there haven't been any real demons to speak of. Weather is expected to be warm with only minimal cloud cover expected if any at all.