Defeat to Australia on Saturday means England have now lost 11 of their last 14 ODIs in Asia and can ill-afford to suffer the same fate in Wednesday’s ICC Champions Trophy Group B fixture against Afghanistan.

When these sides last met in the 2023 Cricket World Cup (CWC), it was Afghanistan, coached by former England international Jonathan Trott, who came out on top as they secured their first H2H victory in any format at the sixth time of asking (L5).

Trott is still in the same role and now needs to plot another win for his side, who were also beaten in their opening match of the Champions Trophy. It was a performance to forget for most of the Afghan team who, according to one win prediction algorithm, failed to lift their chances of winning to greater than 35% across the entire 93.3 overs of the game!

Coming into the tournament in the best recent form of all four sides in Group B (W8, L2), Afghanistan will be desperate to show that Friday’s loss was just a blip.

One key to their chances will be the batting of Rahmat Shah who scored 90 of their 208 runs against South Africa and has now posted a hundred, a double-hundred and a half-century across his last four international innings.

With the ball, the experienced Mohammad Nabi was the only member of Afghanistan’s attack to come out of the defeat with much credit after he took 2-51, picking up the wickets of left-handed opener Tony de Zorzi and captain Temba Bavuma.

The 40-year-old all-rounder had another excellent bowling day in the win over England in 2023 when he returned figures of 2-16 from six overs and again dismissed a left-handed top order batter in Dawid Malan.

The defeat in match 13 of the 2023 CWC will still be fresh in the memory for more than half of England’s side, as six of the XI who took the field in the defeat against Australia on Sunday were also in the team for the loss against Afghanistan.

England fans will be hoping that a desire to right the wrongs of that defeat from 16 months ago and experience of playing against the likes of Nabi and Rashid Khan in an ICC event will stand them in good stead.

Ben Duckett’s form continues to be a rare shining light for England after he struck his highest ODI score of 165 on the weekend and there was also a second half-century in three ODIs for Joe Root.

There will be at least one change to the England XI as an injury to Brydon Carse means he will play no further part in the tournament. His likely replacement for this game, Jamie Overton, is a stronger batter, so will at least lengthen the batting line-up against Afghanistan.

Australia became the third team from the last four ODIs to win at the Gaddafi Stadium when chasing and all of those victories have been secured with at least five wickets in hand.

Interestingly, left-arm bowlers have enjoyed the conditions at this venue in 2025, delivering three of the top four bowling figures.

Humidity levels are expected to rise to over 70% after 7pm local time and England captain Jos Buttler will be acutely aware of this after blaming the defeat against Australia on dew in the second innings of the game.

• Four of Mohammad Nabi’s five international wickets in H2Hs against England have been left-handed batters.

• On average, England have lost 9.57 wickets per innings across their last 14 ODIs in Asia.

• Jos Buttler has a highest score of 18 and averages 10.00 from five internationals vs Afghanistan.

• Mark Wood has taken two wickets in each of his three H2Hs (2x ODIs, 1x T20I) against Afghanistan. 

• In 50-over ICC tournaments, Rahmat Shah is averaging 67.40 from his last six innings.

• England have lost five successive ODIs for the third time since winning the 2019 CWC. They last lost six in a row in 2009!