Before the start of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 match between India and Afghanistan in Delhi, players of both teams observed a moment of silence in the memory of those who lost their lives tragically in the Afghanistan earthquake recently.

According to reports, a powerful, magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck northwestern Afghanistan on Wednesday and the tremors were felt at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles). It came days after multiple earthquakes struck northwest of the city of Herat on Saturday, killing more than 2,000 people and levelling thousands of homes.

Star Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan, had also informed on social media that he is donating all of his World Cup match fees to help the affected people and will launch a fundraising campaign as well.

“I learned with great sadness about the tragic consequences of the earthquake that struck the western provinces (Herat, Farah, and Badghis) of Afghanistan. I am donating all of my #CWC23 match fees to help the affected people,” wrote Rashid on X.

“Soon, we will be launching a fundraising campaign to call upon those who can support the people in need,” he wrote.

Coming to cricket, Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi won the toss and elected to bat first in the ninth match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi.

India made one change to their side from the previous game as they left off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin and brought in seam-bowling all-rounder Shardul Thakur.

“We will bat first. It looks like a good batting surface. We have a good bowling attack to restrict them. It looks like a good surface, we want to bounce back with the bat. We are enjoying, good chance to showcase our talent. We are going with the same team,” said Shahidi at the toss.

“We were looking to bat second. We saw the amount of dew last evening. Don’t think the wicket will change much. Need to bowl well and need to come back and bat better,” said India skipper Rohit Sharma.

“We were under pressure (against Australia) to start with, but KL and Kohli batted well, they were magnificent and we take a lot of pride in our performance. It was a good game for us, hopefully we can repeat that and keep the momentum going forward. Ashwin misses out, Shardul Thakur comes in for him,” he added.

Playing XIs of both teams:

Afghanistan: Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi(c), Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Naveen-ul-Haq, Fazalhaq Farooqi

India: Rohit Sharma(c), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj