NEW DELHI: One of the biggest rivalries in the world of cricket India and Pakistan is about to unfold right in front of our eyes in the world’s biggest cricket grounds the Narendra Modi Stadium.
India who are riding high on confidence, will back themselves to keep their win streak alive as this match comes after India’s two matches against the arch-rivals during a successful Asia Cup campaign.
The Men in Blue have dominated the head-to-head record in ODI World Cup matches with all seven games against the arch-rival, boasting a 100 per cent win record till now.
If they go on to win Saturday’s clash, India will tie the record for most wins against a team without any loss in the World Cup. Pakistan currently holds the record against Sri Lanka with 8 victories in their name.
India will be keen to match that record and assert further dominance over their arch-rival.
One match, held in the group stage was abandoned due to rain while India registered a thumping win in the next clash during the Super Four stage.
Even though the overall record doesn’t favour the Men in Green, Pakistan skipper Babar Azam emphasized on importance of believing in themselves in the pre-match press conference.
“I think what has happened in the past is not important. We want to live in present. I think we can do well. India-Pakistan match is high-intensity. Believe in ourselves. There are a lot of fans coming. I think we have an opportunity to do well in front of fans,” Babar said.
“We plan accordingly as in the first 10 overs the wicket is different and after 10 overs it is different. So, we have to plan accordingly. We will miss Naseem Shah. Shaheen is our best bowler. We believe in him and he believes in himself. One or two matches of bad performance do not bother us,” Babar added.
With the pressure of a clash of this magnitude, the nerves of players can dwindle especially the hype that builds on social media.
Indian skipper Rohit Sharma talked about dealing with the noise and said, “I am not on social media for the past nine months now. So, everyone has their own way of dealing with it. Some people like it, some don’t. But that’s not my place to tell anyone how to do it. They have to work out their own way of dealing with these things. Like I said many times before, in the context of it, yes, it’s a massive game. But for us, what is important is, we are playing an opposition tomorrow, which will be quality. So, we’ve just got to come against a quality opposition and play good cricket, which we’ve done in the last two games. And hopefully, we can again show some consistency in our performance and play a good game of cricket.”
The biggest question of this match will be whether Shubman Gill will feature on the ground that he is known to score runs on.
Rohit had a simple answer to this question as he said “99 per cent he is available. We’ll see tomorrow.”
India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav.
Pakistan squad: Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Mohammad Rizwan, Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Salman Ali Agha, Mohammad Nawaz, Usama Mir, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Wasim. (ANI)