Dinesh Karthik has been chosen over Rishabh Pant in India’s playing 11 against Pakistan. The two sides open their Asia Cup 2022 campaign at the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday. 

India skipper Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bowl. 

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Talking about the team combination, Sharma, at the toss, said that India have gone with Avesh Khan as the third seamer. He added that the choice between Karthik and Pant was a tough one. 

“Honestly, I don’t think the toss is that important, we are just here to play good cricket. We’ve played here in the IPL, so hopefully the pitch will be good. It was a tough call we had to take between playing Dinesh and Rishabh, Rishabh sadly misses out.”

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“And Avesh makes it as the third seamer. This is an important game for us, but as cricketers we don’t want to think about the opposition, we just want to correct whatever mistakes we are doing. We are bowling first,” skipper Rohit Sharma said. 

Right-arm pacer Naseem Shah makes his T20I debut for Pakistan. Skipper Babar Azam announced that the team has chosen three pacers and two spinners for the game. 

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“We would have also been bowling first, but this is not in our hands. We will look to make a big score and see. Three fast bowlers, two spinners and a debut for Naseem Shah,” the Pakistan skipper said. 

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Teams:

Pakistan (Playing XI): Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Fakhar Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Asif Ali, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Shahnawaz Dahani

India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Dinesh Karthik(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh