After defeating Bangladesh in the last group stage game, Afghanistan is now set to play Pakistan in their first Super Four clash of the Asia Cup 2018 at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Friday, September 21, 2018.

Live updates:

Overs 25: AFG 100/3

Afghanistan wins the toss and elects to bat first.

Toss will take place at 4:30 PM PST.

The match is set to start at 4:15 PM AFT, 4:30 PM PST.

Pakistan qualified from group A as the second team, while Afghanistan made through from group B, beating Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The two teams have played previously in two ODIs, and on both occasions, Pakistan has won the games, one of which was played during the Asia Cup 2014.

Pakistan eyes comeback after the heavy defeat against their arch-rivals

Pakistan had a really poor game against India as their batters failed to put a good enough score on the board. The bowlers didn't respond well either, while the fielding was back to being bad.

Going into the first Super Four match against Afghanistan, Sarfaraz Ahmed would know Pakistan need to find some stability with the bat if they were to put on a show.

The slowness of the pitches in UAE has not made stroke-playing easy and the batters need to adjust accordingly.

As per reported by ESPN Cricinfo, Pakistan is likely to stick the same side which played India on Wednesday.

Afghanistan on track with ample amount of crowd behind them at Abu Dhabi

Afghanistan is enjoying themselves completely.

After defeating Sri Lanka early in the tournament, they went on to beat Bangladesh on Thursday to make two wins out of two games so far. Going into Super Four, Asghar Afghan and his team should realize things will get difficult for them.

Playing back-to-back matches would also be a challenge for them.

If we take a look at their wins, the formula has been same: win the toss, bat first, score 250 or more and then knock the opposition with some good bowlers. The Afghanistan side will hope they can repeat this script on Friday as well. As per an article on ESPN Cricinfo suggests, they are unlikely to make any changes to their side.

The Abu Dhabi pitch has played slow, but Afghanistan scored at least 250 runs in both their games batting first, which gives the idea that batting has not been extremely difficult and it is about adapting to the slowness of the track. Though the teams batting second have batted miserably, it will be interesting to see how things pan out on another hot and dry day at Abu Dhabi.
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