India eye a victorious start to Super Fours as Pakistan challenge awaits

After a shaky start against Pakistan in the Asia Cup 2023 group stage match, India managed to turn things around in dramatic fashion as Ishan Kishan and Hardik Pandya cruised their way through the maze put forth by the formidable Pakistan pace battery and help the Men in Blue scrape through what could have been a collapse.

However, as Rohit Sharma’s men look to make amends, their biggest challenge will be to wade through their opposition’s fiery trio of Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf. India will also need to work out the puzzle of fitting a now fully fit KL Rahul into the XI, and it remains to be seen as to who he replaces. 

On the batting front, Shubman Gill and skipper Sharma looked to be in great touch against Nepal, a drive of confidence which they will hope to carry forward against Pakistan. The return of Jasprit Bumrah also augurs well for the Indian team, with the pacer’s experience certain to play a big role in taming Pakistan’s in-form batting unit. 

With the contest between India and Pakistan being the solitary one to be allotted a reserve day apart from the final, chances of rain negating a result is at a bare minimum but then the downpour can invariably impinge the game on a greater scale. With a lot of eyes on this clash, expect the unexpected as India and Pakistan clash paths yet again in the Asia Cup.

Venue Watch:

A total of 155 ODIs have been played in the venue with 84 of them won batting first while only in 61 games has the total been successfully chased down. The average first innings score is that of 232 while the numbers slump to 191 in the second innings that makes batting slightly tricky.

Head to Head:

Matches played: 133

India – 55

Pakistan – 73

Match Details:

Match – India vs Pakistan

Venue: R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo

Date: 10th September, 2023

Time: 3:00 PM

Squads:

India: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, K L Rahul (wk), Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, Tilak Varma, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishan Kishan (wk), Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammad Shami, Mohammed Siraj, and Jasprit Bumrah.

Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Muhammad Tayyab Tahir, Abdullah Shafique, Imam Ul Haq, Fakhar Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Agha Salman, Faheem Ashraf, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Wasim, Muhammad Haris (wk), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi, and Haris Rauf.