Asia Cup 2022: India vs Afghanistan Toss, Playing XI, Pre-match comments: AFG opt to bowl; KL Rahul lead IND

Dubai, Sept. 8: India and Afghanistan will both play for pride as they face off in their final game of the ongoing Asia Cup 2022 at the Dubai International Stadium.

After winning the toss in Dubai on Thursday, Afghanistan skipper Mohammed Nabi elected to bowl first against India.

Afghanistan are playing two matches in two days. After falling to a narrow loss against Pakistan last night, the Afghans take on India with no break in between. After electing to bowl first, skipper Nabi said, "Last night was tough. Left the ground straight and we had green tea with a few players and slept after taking sleeping pills! All round the boys played really well. We'll try our best to play good cricket against a big team. Hopefully we'll perform well."

Meanwhile, leading in Rohit Sharma's absence, India's stand-in skipper KL Rahul said, "We wanted to bat first, challenge ourselves again and see if we can defend the total. We also wanted to test out batters and see if we can put on a good total. (Rohit out) Rohit just wants to take a break considering how tough the conditions are here. We wanted to keep everyone fresh with the World Cup around the corner. Rohit, Hardik and Yuzi miss out. A lot of chat in the team was about the World Cup. We're trying to finalise the roles that each individual will play in the World Cup. Obviously losing is not great but we will grow stronger."

India and Afghanistan are both playing their final game of the ongoing multination tournament. Both these sides had an all-win record in the group stage. But in the Super 4 stage, India and Afghanistan registered two losses on the trot to crash out of the tournament. While India went down to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Afghanistan also registered losses to Lanka and Pakistan.

While Sri Lanka and Pakistan will the final of the Asia Cup, India and Afghanistan will face off in their final Super 4 game and will look to finish the tournament on a positive note.

Toss: Afghanistan opt to bowl against India in Dubai

India vs Afghanistan Playing XIs:

India Playing XI: KL Rahul (capt), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Deepak Chahar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh

Afghanistan Playing XI: Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Najibullah Zadra, Mohammad Nabi (capt), Karim Janat, Rashid Khan, Azmatullah Omarzai, Fareed Ahmed, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi