IND vs PAK : Pakistan win the toss and bowl first, No Ishan Kishan

India vs Pakistan, 16th Match, Group 2 (N), Dubai (DSC), Oct 24 2021

Toss Update : Pakistan win the toss and will bowl first

Image Credits:Getty Images

Pakistan are coming in with a good degree of confidence. It is in the UAE that their rise to the top of the T20I rankings came in 2017-18.

Although England and New Zealand cancelling their tours has meant that they come into this World Cup only on the back of a domestic National T20 Cup, they have looked quite well-oiled in their practice games. Everybody got to bat, everybody got to bowl, and they’ve all done rather well.

If the preference order in those games was anything to go by, Shoaib Malik should play ahead of Haider Ali.

India are coming into this from the other extreme. From the IPL bubble to the Australia bubble to the England bubble to the IPL bubble to the England bubble to the IPL bubble and now to the World Cup bubble. They’ve been on a tight schedule for over a year, and ironically cooped up in their rooms at the same time. But what this brings is an overdose of cricket, and everybody seems to be in form.

They may be tired, but they are in good touch. It’s quite likely that Chakravarthy will make it as the first spinner, and with Kohli fully backing Hardik the batsman, the only decision could be between Shardul and Bhuvaneshwar.

Babar Azam: “We are going to bowl first. We’ll look to take early wickets and put pressure. Dew is also a factor. We have had good practice sessions and am confident about our preparations. Pakistan’s bowlers are known to trouble other teams but I am confident about our batting too. Haider Ali is left out.“

Virat Kohli: “We are pretty happy with setting the target. We would have bowled first too, but the toss is not in your control. We are pretty balanced with our squad and you need to be prepared for it. We need to stay as professional as possible. We need to stay focussed on the processes.

Everyone watches it closely all over the world. We can use that as a motivation, but we need to ensure we don’t get too emotional and need to just stay professional. The pitch looks very different. Evenly rolled and there is no grass at all which was the case during the IPL.

I’m sure that was done to hold it together well for the World Cup. We expect the pitch to stay good all through and set a good total. The four not playing are: Rahul Chahar, Ishan Kishan, Ashwin and Thakur.”

Teams:

India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli(c), Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah

Pakistan (Playing XI): Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Asif Ali, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali, Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi