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With the announcement of T20 World Cup Super 12 schedule, the star-studded Team India is all set to go all guns blazing as they set their sights on the elusive title. Rohit Sharma & Co. will lock horns with arch-rivals Pakistan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on October 23 (Sunday) and the hype around the high-octane slugfest is only surging.
Both the sides are loaded with high-profile players. It will be a cracker of a contest between India's star batters and Pakistan's lethal pace attack.
Shaheen Shah Afridi is one of the world's premier white ball bowlers and the Indian batters need to try and play him "straight" even if they are attacking the talented Pakistani left-arm pacer, said legendary Sachin Tendulkar.
At his peak, Tendulkar played a lot of limited overs cricket against Wasim Akram, perhaps the greatest left-arm fast bowler of all time and the maestro did share his observations with PTI during a chat.
Asked what he would have done had he faced a bowler of Shaheen's calibre during his playing days, Tendulkar laughed and said: "I have not put my mind as such since I know I won't be facing him." But then on a serious note, he shared his point of view.
"Shaheen is an attacking bowler and he likes to go for wickets. He pitches the ball up and backs himself to swing the ball. He has the capability to beat the batters in the air and off the pitch with his pace upfront. So with him strategy should be to play straight and within the 'V'," said Tendulkar.
Shaheen's greatest asset is to bring the ball back into right handers at express pace and even getting a few to hold its line apparently with no change of pace.
He also has a good short ball which can hurry batters and make them candidates for leg before.
Tendulkar, a technician par excellence, also warned that even if a batter makes trigger movement (the initial reflex movement), it shouldn't be akin to making a commitment to play the shot.
"Trigger movement is a preparation to play the ball and not commitment, if you are not committing to play the ball, it could be either on front-foot or backfoot, but it is a trigger movement and not commitment," he said.
"Because once you are committed on backfoot, you can't come on the front-foot and vice versa. Trigger movement is about preparation.
"Every ball, there is some kind of movement, as long as that is not commitment it is fine," Tendulkar concluded.
Head-to-head record
India and Pakistan have faced off against each other six times in ICC T20 World Cup tournaments. Of these six matches, the Men in Blue have won four times and their opponents have secured victory just once. Meanwhile, only one match was tied between the two sides. The highest total posted by India is 157 runs, and the highest score posted by Pakistan is 152. 118 is the lowest total posted by Pakistan and 119 is the lowest total posted by India in the marquee event.
Indian supremacy
The inaugural T20 World Cup was held in 2007. The first edition of the marquee cricket tournament was played in South Africa and the fans got to India and Pakistan face off twice! Team India, captained by MS Dhoni, defeated Pakistan by the bowl-out rule after their group stage match was tied.
India's complete schedule for T20 World Cup 2022 Super 12
October 23 - India vs Pakistan - 1:30 PM (Melbourne Cricket Ground)
October 27 - India vs Netherlands - 12:30 PM (Sydney Cricket Ground)
October 30 - India vs South Africa - 4:30 PM (Optus Stadium, Perth)
November 2 - India vs Bangladesh - 1:30 PM (Adelaide Oval)
November 6 - India vs Zimbabwe - 1:30 PM (Melbourne Cricket Ground)
Squads
India
Rohit Sharma (captain), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Harshal Patel and Deepak Hooda.
Pakistan
Babar Azam (captain), Mohammed Rizwan (wk), Fakhar Zaman, Shan Masood, Mohammed Nawaz, Khushdil Shah, Asif Ali, Haider Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammed Wasim, Shadab Khan, Mohammed Hasnain.
