Why Pakistan named their Playing 11 in Advance for Asia Cup opener: Ahead of Pakistan’s opening game of the Asia Cup 2023 against Nepal, PCB announced their Playing 11 for the match much earlier before the toss.
Why Pakistan named their Playing 11 in Advance for Asia Cup opener
At first, everyone thought that it might be a leak but right after the official announcement every fan was confused regarding this advanced move.
Pakistan picked three mainstream pacers in the team, in the form of Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, and Haris Rauf while Mohammad Nawaz and Shadab Khan were the spinners.
After winning the toss, Babar revealed exactly why the team management decided to name the playing XI in advance.
“We will bat first, the pitch looks very dry and shiny. No reason to name the XI earlier, we wanted to give confidence to our team. To be honest, being the top-ranked team brings a good kind of pressure, we’ll try to enjoy and do our best,” Babar said at the time of the toss.
Nepal captain Rohit Paudel, on the other hand, was understandably elated to be playing the Asia Cup for the first time ever.
“Everyone is very happy, it is our first game in the Asia Cup. Everyone in Nepal is really excited for this game. Most of the things here are very similar to Nepal, looks like a beautiful wicket to bat on,” he said after the toss.
Pakistan Playing XI
Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (w), Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf.
Nepal Playing XI
Kushal Bhurtel, Aasif Sheikh (w), Rohit Paudel (c), Aarif Sheikh, Kushal Malla, Dipendra Singh Airee, Gulsan Jha, Sompal Kami, Karan KC, Sandeep Lamichhane, Lalit Rajbanshi.
In the first match of the Asia Cup 2023, winning the toss Pakistan choose to bat first. Though Pakistan’s openers failed to lay a strong foundation skipper Babar Azam made a stand and led Pakistan to score 167 runs for a 4-wicket loss at the end of 34 overs.
