India Vs Pakistan: No Chahal, Harshal In India’s Playing XI, 7 Batters Included For T20 World Cup Blockbuster In Melbourne

The highly-anticipated India vs Pakistan clash in the T20 World Cup 2022 began with Rohit Sharma winning the toss and opting to field first in Melbourne on Sunday. As Rohit announced his playing XI at the time of the toss, he sprung a big surprise as there was no place for Yuzvendra Chahal and Harshal Patel. Instead, India went with Ravichandran Ashwin and Mohammed Shami for their T20 World Cup opener at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Rohit opted to bowl first in the match, keeping himself ready for possible rain in the later phases of the match.

Shami’s inclusion seems to have come on the basis of the spectacular form he showed in the warm-up game against Australia and in the nets. In the Ashwin vs Chahal battle, the former’s experience seems to have earned him the nod over the latter.

Here’s how the two teams are lining up:

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

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

At the time of the toss, Rohit said: “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.”

Promoted

Babar Azam, the Pakistan skipper, said at the time of the toss that his team will be looking to post a total of 160-170 runs on the board.

“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 (against England), we played a tri-series in New Zealand, so we are prepared. We have three fast bowlers and two spinners,” he said.