While all the four teams out of six participating teams of ongoing Asia Cup have secured their places in the next stage Super Four rounds, the Group A clash between India and Pakistan is still going to be a must-watch game that will be played on Wednesday (September 19).

The arch-rivals are going to meet first time in international cricket since the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy final that Pakistan won by 180 runs.

Also read: Ravichandran Ashwin: Don’t think the Champions Trophy final loss will be a baggage

Both teams have started this tournament campaign with a victory against another Group A team Hong Kong. While Pakistan clinched an easy victory of 8 wickets (with 158 balls remaining) against Hong Kong, India struggled very much against Hong Kong before securing a close victory by 26 runs.

Both India and Pakistan have quality players in this tournament, but Pakistan has more regular playing XI line-ups than the Indian cricket team. Currently, the Pakistan batsmen are in the good form while the Indian batsmen are struggling to provide consistent performances. Meanwhile, both teams’ bowlers are in the good forms as they can destroy any good batting teams.

Also read: Pakistan’s Bashir Chacha Offers A Helping Hand To Sudhir Gautam

However, Pakistan has a huge advantage in this tournament as they are playing in UAE, where they regularly play the international cricket matches as the home venue. On the other hand, Indian cricketers have no international cricket experiences in UAE, except MS Dhoni, as last time they played in UAE before this Asia Cup was in April 2006.

In the Asia Cup history, both teams have very close records, like their recent ODI encounters. While Pakistan seems the favourite for this game due to some important reasons (home-like conditions, India is playing back-to-back ODI matches in less than 24 hours etc.), Indian cricket team is also desperate to win this game.

Full squads

India: Rohit Sharma (c), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Ambati Rayudu, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shardul Thakur, Dinesh Karthik, Khaleel Ahmed.

Pakistan: Sarfraz Ahmed (c/wk), Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul Haq, Babar Azam, Shan Masood, Shoaib Malik, Haris Sohail, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Junaid Khan, Usman Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Asif Ali, Mohammad Amir.

Key Stats

• India and Pakistan have met 11 times in Asia Cup history (excluding the T20 Asia Cup) where both teams have won five each and one match failed to produce any result.
• In the Asia Cup history (excluding the T20 Asia Cup), India has won only once against Pakistan when they batted first.
• In the Asia Cup history (excluding the T20 Asia Cup), Pakistan has won only once against India when they lost the toss.
• Since Virat Kohli’s debut in international cricket, it will be the first-ever India-Pakistan contest in international cricket where Kohli will not feature.