Pakistan vs India is always more than ‘just cricket’
Cricket fever has gripped Ahmedabad as Pakistan and India are set to go toe-to-toe in a much-awaited World Cup competition at the cricket biggest stadium in the world on Saturday (today), with the Green Shirts eyeing to break the India jinx.
The contest will mark the first
instance of Pakistan and India playing a one-day international (ODI) against
each other on Indian soil after 10 years. Their last bilateral meeting resulted
in Pakistan defeating the hosts 2-1.
Billions of cricket fans from around
the world will tune in to watch great rivals, Pakistan and India, play at the
the Narendra Modi Stadium.
Preceding Victories Set the Stage
Both sides enter this contest after
wins in their opening matches.
India beat Australia in Chennai and
Afghanistan in Delhi and Pakistan signed off their memorable trip to Hyderabad
by recording the highest-ever chase in the history of the World Cup, thanks to
gutsy centuries from Abdullah Shafique and Mohammad Rizwan, on Tuesday.
Babar Azam's side kicked off their
World Cup campaign with a comfortable 81-run win over the Netherlands.
Cricket Fever Engulfs Ahmedabad
The western Indian city of Ahmedabad
is in firm grip of a cricket fever and more than 100,000 fans, including
celebrities, are expected to turn up for the game's fiercest rivalry.
The Green Shirts have not won a single
match against India during their World Cup encounters, but the Pakistani
skipper is confident that his side will turn the tides this time around.
"I don't focus on the past. Let's
focus on the thing to come as we know records are meant to be broken," the
skipper said during a press conference about India's 7-0 streak against
Pakistan.
The skipper also noted that his team
would not be pressurised due to the massive crowd that is expected at the huge
stadium.
"It's not pressure. We have
played at big stadiums like at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). But, yes,
all the support in Ahmedabad will be for India. It would have been better had
Pakistan fans been allowed."
Rohit Sharma, India's skipper, also
played down the hysteria around the contest, saying his players would not be
swayed by it.
"We'd treat this match just like
we treated the previous two matches and how we'd treat our remaining matches.
No more, no less."
Expected playing XIs
Pakistan:
1Abdullah Shafique 2 Imam-ul-Haq
3 Babar Azam(c) 4 Mohammad Rizwan(wk)
5 Saud Shakeel 6 Iftikhar
Ahmed
7 Shadab Khan 8 Mohammad
Nawaz
9 Hasan Ali 10 Shaheen Afridi
11 Haris Rauf
India:
1Rohit
Sharma(c) 2 Shubman Gill
3 Virat Kohli 4 Shreyas Iyer
5 KL Rahul
(wk) 6 Hardik
Pandya
7 Ravindra Jadeja 8 Shardul Thakur
9 Kuldeep Yadav 10 Jasprit Bumrah
11 Mohammed
Siraj