Darren Gough believes India are worthy favourites to win the Champions Trophy but says Afghanistan could ‘surprise everyone’ by ‘doing the business’ in favourable conditions.
Formidable India kick-started their Champions Trophy campaign with an emphatic six-wicket victory over Bangladesh on Thursday.
Harshit Rana and Mohammed Shami ripped through Bangaldesh’s top order to reduce the Tigers to 35-5 in the powerplay.
Tawhid Hridoy’s heroic century and a half-century from Jaker Ali got Bangladesh up to 228, with Shami finishing with 5-53.
India’s chase was always under control, with opener Shubman Gill hitting an unbeaten century and captain Rohit Sharma and wicketkeeper KL Rahul both making 41.
Victory was sealed with six wickets and 21 balls to spare, with India joining New Zealand at the top of Group A ahead of their next group games against the Black Caps and arch-rivals Pakistan.
Gough struggles to ‘look past’ India, who thumped England in a one-sided warm-up series before the tournament, but has backed minnows Afghanistan to ‘surprise everyone’ with a deep run.
Afghanistan are in Group B – which Gough views as the ‘weaker’ one – alongside South Africa and Ashes rivals England and Australia.
‘If I had to pick a winning team, I think I would go for the favourites, India, purely because they’ve got just about everything,’ said new Ladbrokes ambassador and ex-England fast bowler Gough.
‘You know, they’ve got experience in Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, and Ravindra Jadeja… that’s serious experience in your starting eleven.
‘Then they’ve got the stardust players, the likes of Rishabh Pant – who couldn’t get in the starting eleven against England, but what a player he is.
‘Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Harshit Rana, who has come into the squad, and Shubman Gill. These are all wonderful players to watch, and they they’ve got the spin of Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar and Varun Chakravarthy.
‘They’ve got a bit of everything in there; Arshdeep Singh is obviously the left-arm seamer as well, who’ll give them a bit of difference if they wanted to go with that.
‘I just find it hard to look past them, to be honest. If I was to go for a surprise team, with the conditions, I would go with Afghanistan.
‘I think they surprised everyone at the World Cup a couple of years ago, and being in the easier group they might just surprise everyone once again, and do the business.’
Co-hosts Pakistan were thumped by New Zealand in the opening Champions Trophy fixture on Wednesday.
Afghanistan face South Africa on Friday before England take on the old enemy Australia in Lahore on Saturday.
‘This is a hard one to predict, actually, but I’m going to go for an England win,’ added Gough, who took 235 ODI wickets.
‘I know they’ve not been in great form recently, and it doesn’t look a balanced squad on paper.
‘But Australia are without their first-choice seam attack of Hazelwood, Starc and Cummins, and that’s going to be a huge loss for them to have to deal with.
‘They’ve still got strong batting; people like Glenn Maxwell and Marnus Labuschagne in the middle order, and a lot of youngsters in there.
‘I look at England and I’m a little bit worried, really. They’ve lost Jacob Bethell, now, he’s going to be out, and they’ve brought in Tom Banton who has been playing most of his stuff in franchise cricket this winter.
‘Looking on paper, for England, it just lacks a little bit of balance, it really does. But I still fancy them to beat Australia.’
Pakistan won the last Champions Trophy which was held back in 2017, beating India in the final at The Oval.
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