ICC T20 World Cup 2022, IND vs PAK: Men in Blue move in with 3 seamers, as India opts to field
India and Pakistan are colliding in the Super 12 of the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup in Melbourne on Sunday. The Men in Blue won the toss and opted to field, while both teams moved in with the same combinations.
FollowIt is all set for a cracking encounter between arch-rivals India and Pakistan clash at the sold-out Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on Sunday in their Super 12 opener of the ICC T20 World Cup 2022. While it is the third meeting of the year between the two, both sides would be desperate to get off to a winning start to have the advantage early into the competition. Meanwhile, the Men in Blue have won the coin toss and opted to field, given the overcast conditions and a mild grass cover, which would partially help the seamers, while the rain threat still looms large over the tie.
After winning the toss, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma said, "We are going to field first. It looks like a good pitch. It's always nice to bowl in overcast conditions. I think the ball will swing a bit, and we need to take 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 fans]. We have seven batters, three seamers and two spinners."
CATCH ALL ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2022 UPDATES HERE
In comparison, Pakistan captain Babar Azam spoke. "Toss is not in our hands, but we would have liked to bowl first as well. We'll try to post around 160-170. We have prepared well, and we are ready for this big game. We had a T20 series back home [versus England] and played a tri-series in New Zealand, so we are prepared. We have three fast bowlers and two spinners."
Playing XI
IND: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (wk), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami and Arshdeep Singh.
PAK: Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Shan Masood, Haider Ali, Mohammad Nawaz, Shadab Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Asif Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah.
