Afghanistan's Predicted XI vs South Africa, Cricket World Cup 2023: Will Fazalhaq Farooqi Find Himself A Place?

Afghanistan will take on South Africa in their final ICC World Cup 2023 league stage match on Friday, November 10. The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad will host this clash, scheduled to start at 2:00 PM IST. The Asian side has done remarkably well in the ongoing competition, winning and losing four matches apiece. Their four victories came against defending champions England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Netherlands. In their previous match, Afghanistan came agonisingly close to pulling off an upset against Australia before going down by three wickets.

Batting first, Afghanistan rode on opener Ibrahim Zadran's unbeaten 129 off 143 balls to register 291/5 at the end of 50 overs. Thereafter, a terrific bowling show, led by Naveen-ul-Haq and Azmatullah Omarzai, restricted Australia to 91/7.

The Hashmatullah Shahidi-led side looked set for a stunning win, only to be undone by a breathtaking knock by Glenn Maxwell. The Aussie all-rounder smashed a scintillating 201* to help his side seal a semi-final spot.

Given their current Net Run Rate of -0.338, the Afghans will need to win their upcoming match against already-qualified South Africa by a big margin to stand any chance of qualifying for the semis and for the same, they are set to trust the following XI to get the job done.

Openers: Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran

Even though Rahmanullah Gurbaz's form has dipped towards the business end of the competition, his knack for providing aggressive starts has remained constant and is set to open the innings against the Proteas. In eight matches, Gurbaz has scored 255 runs at an average of 31.87.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Zadran became the first Afghanistan batter to score a century in ICC World Cup history last time out. Unfortunately,