India will be taking on Pakistan in their Asia Cup 2023 camaign opener on Saturday. This will be the first time that the two sides will be facing each other since their meeting in T20 World Cup last year. For the first time in several months, the Rohit Sharma-led side is having a full-strength team. The Indian team finished a camp on the outskirts of Bengaluru in Alur to prepare themselves ahead of the match against Pakistan. On the other hand, the Babar Azam-led side routed Nepal by 238 runs in the opening game of the continental event.
The likes of Shreyas Iyer and Jasprit Bumrah have returned to the Indian setup while KL Rahul is set to miss first two games of Asia Cup.
India (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Ishan Kishan (wk), 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Shardul Thakur/Mohammed Shami, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Jasprit Bumrah
Pakistan announced an unchanged XI on Friday evening.
Pakistan: 1 Fakhar Zaman, 2 Imam-ul-Haq, 3 Babar Azam (capt), 4 Mohammad Rizwan (wk), 5 Agha Salman, 6 Iftikhar Ahmed, 7 Shadab Khan, 8 Mohammad Nawaz, 9 Shaheen Shah Afridi, 10 Naseem Shah, 11 Haris Rauf
Pitch and conditions: Rain threatens delayed start
The match will be played on a fresh pitch but if it behaves anything like the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh one, with help for both seamers and spinners, good luck to the batters. There’s a forecast of rain, though, from early morning till mid-afternoon, which could delay the start.
Stats and trivia: Kohli, Babar on the cusp of milestones
- Kohli is 102 short of becoming the fifth batter to reach 13,000 ODI runs. If he gets there on Saturday, in his 266th innings, he will break Sachin Tendulkar’s record (321 innings) of being the fastest to that milestone.
- Babar has 19 ODI hundreds. One more and he will level with Saeed Anwar for the most ODI hundreds for Pakistan.
- Imam-ul-Haq has a chance to become the second fastest to 3000 ODI runs. At the moment, he has 2889 runs in 63 innings. Shai Hope and Fakhar Zaman, who are currently the joint second-fastest, reached there in 67 innings.
- Ravindra Jadeja needs six wickets to become the seventh Indian with 200 ODI wickets, and the first Indian since Kapil Dev (3783 runs and 253 wickets) to complete the double of 2000 runs and 200 wickets.
Quotes
“They are a very good team, last few years they’ve done really well, whether it’s at the T20 World Cup or in the 50-over format. No team becomes No. 1 just like that. Pakistan has worked hard a lot to get there, they look like a unit. It will be a good challenge to play against them.”
Rohit Sharma on Pakistan
Rohit Sharma on Pakistan
“Let’s leave that debate [Babar vs Kohli] to people. Everybody has their point of view, and I don’t want to comment on it. He is elder to me and I have been taught to respect elders, no matter from which country they are. And I have learnt a lot from him. In 2019, during the World Cup, I spoke to him and it helped me a lot.”
Babar Azam on his relation with Virat Kohli
Babar Azam on his relation with Virat Kohli
