'They have just 1 quality pacer?' - Aakash Chopra highlights Afghanistan's weaknesses ahead of Champions Trophy 2025

With Afghanistan getting ready for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, former Indian opener-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra has indicated key concerns regarding their squad, particularly the lack of quality fast bowlers. The side's over-reliance on their spinners and a lack of attacking batters could be a challenge in the upcoming tournament.

Afghanistan has been placed in Group B alongside Australia, England, and South Africa. Given the strength of these teams, a well-rounded bowling attack will be important. However, Chopra believes that Afghanistan lacks depth in its fast-bowling department, which might affect its performance.

"Fazalhaq Farooqi is their only quality pacer. They have Fareed Ahmad and Azmatullah Omarzai as well but they are not the same quality. They have just one quality pacer, who can also take care of the death. They will be one of those teams that will bowl spin even at the death," he said on his YouTube channel.

The Hashmatullah Shahidi-led squad includes Farooqi, Fareed Ahmad, and Naveed Zadran as their main seamers. While Farooqi has been a consistent player with 50 wickets at an economy rate of 5.77 in ODIs, the other pacers lack both experience and delivering consistently. Chopra believes that the team might rely heavily on spin, even during the death overs, due to their pace limitations. 

"They have options, but pacer is something that they tend to miss a little. Since all their games are in Pakistan, they should be able to manage. Interestingly, Pakistan have kept only one spinner in their squad and only one fast bowler might play in Afgshanistan's XI and the second might be Azmatullah Omarzai, and a bit of Gulbadin Naib," he added.

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The batting is solid but you didn't see too many attacking batters: Aakash Chopra

Afghanistan’s spin attack, featuring Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, and Mohammad Nabi, has been their biggest strength. However, in conditions where seamers are important, their lack of high-quality pacers could be a disadvantage.

Apart from bowling, Chopra also pointed at their batting lineup, saying aside from Rahmanullah Gurbaz, the team lacks aggressive batters who can accelerate the scoring rate in high-scoring games.

"The batting is solid but you didn't see too many attacking batters apart from Rahmanullah Gurbaz. You see Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi and Ibrahim Zadran going slowly. All of them bat at the same pace. They don't have too many batters who score quickly. So if it's a 325 to 350-run game, their batting gets stuck slightly. Sometimes the pitch is extremely flat and even though you have quality spin or bowling, it is taken for runs. What will you do then? Then you look towards your batting as the pitch might be like a cemented one, and you get that many times in Pakistan. There their batting struggles at times in terms of firepower at the top," he concluded.