Team India captain Rohit Sharma won the all-important toss and elected to field first in the Men in Blue's T20 World Cup campaign opener against arch-rivals Pakistan on October 23 (Sunday) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). In what came as a surprise, India went ahead with the experienced Ravichandran Ashwin while Yuzvendra Chahal was ignored from the playing XI.
“We are going to field first. Looks like a good pitch, it's always nice to bowl with overcast conditions. Think the ball will swing around a bit, and we need to take its advantage. Preparations have been good. We played a couple of practice games in Brisbane. Time to come out and enjoy ourselves now. We were expecting nothing less than this, hopefully we'll entertain them (the crowd). We have seven batters, three seamers and two spinners,” India captain Rohit said at the toss to host broadcasters.
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh
Pakistan (Playing XI): Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Shan Masood, Haider Ali, Mohammad Nawaz, Shadab Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Asif Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah
The stage is set for India to exact revenge on Pakistan for their loss in the 2021 T20 World Cup, but that will be the last thing on skipper Rohit Sharma's mind when they take on their bitter rivals in their opening match of the 2022 T20 World Cup Super 12 stage at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday, October 23.
Back in 2021, Pakistan dealt India a major blow as they secured a comfortable 10-wicket win, with Shaheen Afridi bundling up the top order. In that match, the 3/31 by Shaheen was also successful in bruising the egos of some of contemporary cricket's biggest batting stalwarts. While Rohit, Virat Kohli or KL Rahul would have not so easily forgotten 2021's humiliation in Dubai, the fact remains that India as a team have looked slightly under-cooked in recent times.
Also, the two teams are squaring off against each other for the fourth time in a span of a year. Pakistan trounced India by 10 wickets in the T20 World Cup match last year in UAE while both teams registered a win against each other in the Asia Cup 2022. The Men in Blue will be desperate to exact revenge after suffering an awful defeat against the Men in Green last year and also for their loss in Asia Cup this year.
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.
