Ahead of the much-awaited India – Pakistan clash in Asia Cup 2023, Indian captain Rohit Sharma addressed the media and spoke on the rivalry between the two teams.
Rohit on PAK vs IND Clash in Asia Cup 2023
As per the Asia Cup 2023 schedule, India and Pakistan were scheduled to clash on September 2 in Pallekele.
The 16th edition of the Asia Cup tournament is scheduled to play between August – September and will be jointly hosted by Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Asia Cup 2023 will also be the first of its kind to be co-hosted by multiple countries.
Four matches of the Asia Cup 2023 will be played in Pakistan while the remaining nine matches of the tournament will be played in Sri Lanka.
Pakistan who played the tournament opener match against Nepal registered a massive 238 runs defeat and holds the top of the points table. As of their first encounter, Pakistan named their playing 11 much earlier and showed a strong positive approach against India.
Rohit said that while the rivalry makes this is a highly anticipated contest, for team India this is just another opponent.
“There are six very competitive teams in the Asia Cup and on a given day anyone can beat anyone,” the captain said at the press conference ahead of the encounter.
“Rivalry is there for people to talk about. As a team, what we see is we have an opposition to play tomorrow and see what we want to do. What is going to help us is to keep doing the right things on the field.”
Pakistan recently rose to No.1 in the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s ODI Team Rankings and the Indian skipper acknowledged the opposition’s good form heading into this tournament.
“Pakistan has played really well in recent times in both T20Is and ODIs. They worked really hard to be No.1 and it’ll be a good challenge for us tomorrow,” he added.
In Pakistan’s first match against Nepal, Shadab Khan bagged 4 wickets while Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah bagged 2 wickets each. On the other hand, Naseem Shah bowled 5 overs and bagged one wicket and gave just 17 runs.
Asked about the threat of the Pakistan pace attack, Rohit said that the team would bank on experience to counter the pace trio.
“Look, in the nets, we don’t have Shaheen, Naseem or Rauf. We practice with who we have. They are all quality bowlers. We just have to use our experience to play them tomorrow,” he said.
The skipper also played down the role of toss, stating that there was no guarantee that they could win the match should they win the toss.
“We try to keep our goals small and see what’s in front of us. We have Pakistan to face tomorrow and we will focus on that first and then look ahead. We have given time to many players and they have another opportunity in a tournament where six teams play. The issues we want to address, we have addressed. Now we want to focus on doing well in these games.”
CHECK: PAK vs IND Asia Cup 2023 Dream11 Prediction, Pitch Report
