T20 World Cup 2022: Ashwin plays, Chahal out for India vs Pakistan

Ravichandran Ashwin was picked over Yuzvendra Chahal for India vs Pakistan Super 12 tie of the T20 World Cup 2022 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday.

India won the toss, and elected to bowl vs Pakistan. 

Early on Sunday, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology reported that about 2-5 mm of rainfall is expected. The weather seemed clear and fans can expect a complete 40-over game.  Cloud cover is expected to be 92%. 

“We are going to field first. Looks like a good pitch, it’s always nice with overcast conditions. Think the ball will swing around a bit. Preparations have been good. We played a couple of practice games in Brisbane. Time to come out and enjoy ourselves. We were expecting nothing less than this, hopefully we’ll entertain them. We have seven batters, three seamers and two spinners,” India captain Rohit Sharma said at the toss. 

Also Read: T20 World Cup 2022 live updates: India win the toss, elect to bowl

Shan Masood, who was hit on the head in a net session on Friday, was included in the Pakistan playing 11. 

“Toss is not in our hands. We’ll try to post around 160-170. We have prepared well, and we are ready for this big game. We won a series back home, we played a tri-series in New Zealand, so we are prepared. We have three fast bowlers and two spinners,” Pakistan captain Babar Azam said. 

The last ICC tournament that India had won was the 2013 Champions Trophy. Pakistan beat them in the final of the 2017 edition of the tournament. 

Last year, Babar and co beat the Men in Blue by 10 wickets and both teams won one game each in the recently concluded Asia Cup 2022. 

India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh

Pakistan (Playing XI): Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Shan Masood, Haider Ali, Mohammad Nawaz, Shadab Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Asif Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah

The match starts at 1:30 PM IST.