Afghans' biggest test

Afghanistan face their toughest test of the World Cup so far when they play four-time champions Australia in Perth on Wednesday.

Afghanistan have been the 'Cinderella' story of this World Cup, with their maiden win -- a thrilling one-wicket victory over Scotland in Dunedin last time out -- one of the highlights of the competition so far.

But the pace and bounce of the WACA pitch is unlike any surface Afghanistan have experienced before and, in such fast bowlers as Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc, Australia have the attack to exploit the conditions.

It may well have been with this match in mind that International Cricket Council chief executive David Richardson told AFP on Friday: "I'm pleased with the performances of the qualifiers so far, but the bigger tests are still to come."

The following day the amateurs from the UAE were skittled out for just 102 at the WACA by defending champions India, whose pace attack is nothing like as intimidating as that of Australia.

"As everyone knows the UAE has been our home ground due to security reasons and the pitches in UAE are slow and favour spin," said Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi.

However, Afghanistan's last Pool A match against a Test nation saw them reduce Sri Lanka to 51 for four before Mahela Jayawardene's hundred restored the status quo.

Furthermore, the likes of fast bowler Hamid Hassan and left-arm quick Shapoor Zadran, who starred with bat and ball against Scotland, could find the WACA to their liking.

For Australia, it is the classic 'no-win' situation in that anything less than a huge victory, never mind a defeat, will be regarded with dismay by their supporters.

Australia need points on the board after their 111-run opening win over England was followed by a no-result washout against Bangladesh and last weekend's thrilling one-wicket defeat by New Zealand in Auckland.

Australia captain Michael Clarke's lament about his side's inability to play swing bowling, after they slumped to 151 all out against New Zealand, was interpreted in some quarters as a criticism of coach Darren Lehmann's training methods.

5 Facts

• Australia won the only previous one-day international between these teams, by 66 runs in August 2012. That was Afghanistan's second ODI against a Test-playing nation.
• Shane Watson has reached 50 once in his 11 ODI innings since the start of last year; his averages of 23.6 in 2014 and 20 in 2015 are his two lowest across his 14-year career.
• Afghanistan's Nawroz Mangal has scored 18.2 percent of his runs in the tournament in boundaries, the lowest percentage of anyone scoring at least 10 runs.
• Australia fast bowler Mitchell Starc has bowled 76 dot balls out of a total of 108 he has bowled in this tournament, the second highest percentage of all bowlers (70.4 per cent).
• Of bowlers with at least 50 ODI wickets, Starc has the lowest strike rate (24.1).