Toss Pakistan chose to bat vs Afghanistan

Pakistan won the toss and, as has been the theme of this series, elected to bat first against Afghanistan as the teams moved to Colombo for the third and final ODI.

Afghanistan also made two changes, bringing in Gulbadin Naib and Fareed Ahmad in place of Ikram Alikhil and Abdul Rahman. Naib had been drafted into the squad for the third ODI earlier in the day in place of Azmatullah Omarzai, who has a side strain.

Having bossed the opening ODI where they rolled over Afghanistan for just 59, Pakistan were handed a much sterner test in the second game. Rahmanullah Gurbaz’s run-a-ball 151 helped Afghanistan rack up 300 for 5 but Naseem held his nerve in the chase to take his side over the line in the penultimate ball of the game.

It is likely to be humid in Colombo, but rain is unlikely to cause any interruptions to the game. Crucially, a win here will take Pakistan to the top of the ODI rankings.

Playing XIs
Pakistan: 1 Imam-ul-Haq, 2 Fakhar Zaman, 3 Babar Azam (capt), 4 Mohammad Rizwan (wk), 5 Saud Shakeel, 6 Agha Salman, 7 Shadab Khan, 8 Mohammad Nawaz, 9 Faheem Ashraf, 10 Shaheen Afridi, 11 Mohammad Wasim
Afghanistan: 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 2 Ibrahim Zadran, 3 Riaz Hassan, 4 Hashmatullah Shahidi (capt), 5 Gulbadin Naib, 6 Mohammad Nabi, 7 Rashid Khan, 8 Shahidullah Kamal, 9 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 10 Fazalhaq Farooqi, 11 Fareed Ahmad