Arch rivals India and Pakistan faceoff in Asia cup

Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi and India’s Gautam Gambhir in an argument during a 2007 ODI in Kanpur

Sunday evening will be spiced up as the two arch-rivals India and Pakistan will lock horns in the T20 Asia cup match, to be played in the Dubai international stadium at 7:30 pm.

While India is Playing without Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal patel. Pakistan will have to carry on without the services of Shaheen afridi and Mohammad Wasim Jr.

Team India

Team india practice session

The revival of Indian batting has reached a turning point. Since the lethargic Tournament that occurred last October in the UAE, much exertion has been put into attaining a do-over. Commencing on Sunday, there seems to be an opportunity to try it for the very first time in a cross competition. India could use an adversary that regularly wins in the UAE as a beginning point to determine whether their 180 degree batting turnaround will break their 15-year T20 WC winless streak subsequently this year.

With such a decent top, India currently has the chance to adhere to this destruction strategy after improving their batting results over the past ten months in every part of the Twenty20 game by accepting the dangers and benefits about not performing cautiously. After their respective sabbatical, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli return, giving VVS Laxman and Rohit Sharma a crucial decision to make at the start of this campaign. Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, and Ravindra Jadeja make up India’s 5-6-7 finishing axis, with Suryakumar Yadav and Rishabh Pant acting as useful floaters. However, with their back to regular fortitude and as a sign of the batsman dominance hierarchy, this strategy may need to be adjusted.

Tactics: In this year’s T20Is, 12 of Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s Twenty strikes had arrive inside the PowerPlay. India will seek to utilise this skill against a team with a top-3 and middle-order batting average of 42.35 and 15.59, accordingly, since January 2021, which shows a noticeable talent gap amongst sides. Since January 2021, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan have scored 1000 or more runs in T20I, therefore breaking that opening partnership should be India’s top bowling priority.

Team pakistan

Team pakistan practice session

All tempo issues and decision-making difficulties for Pakistan are related to its bowling. Due to Shaheen Afridi’s injuries, Pakistan has now been hindered vs an outfit that has had trouble handling the left-hander in previous matches. Mohammad Wasim Jr. is now unavailable due to injuries sustained during practise.

Shahnawaz Dahani and Naseem Shah are Pakistan’s two quick bowlers, and they have a cumulative total of two T20 Internationals of encounter. Hasan Ali, who had not been initially selected after a lacklustre year with ball, is now returned to the side. With his left-armer-free bowling options, Babar Azam must be precise, while leggie Shadab Khan, making his first Limited – overs match since December 2021, must also get going right away.

Tactics: Babar must use his skills wisely in Shaheen’s absence against an enthusiastic Indian batting lineup. It is important to wisely utilise the large sizes of the Dubai stadium, especially in the PowerPlay overs, when India has struck 71 sixes in 37 innings since January 2021. Pakistan has only hit 30 of them throughout this time period (in 10 less innings), which helps put the level of risk-taking into perspective. Timing the insertion of leggies Shadab and Usman Qadir will also be crucial, depending on where Rishabh Pant bats.

Head to head encounter

India has a better 8-5 win ratio over Pakistan at Asia Cups. Five of 6 Asia Cup competitions among the two teams since 2010 have been won by India.

Expectations

Dew’s effect causes problems for teams that bowl second. However, India has prepared for this possibility by electing to bat first if it is feasible since their last participated overseas. In 16 T20Is played following the 2021 World Cup, India has batted first 12 times and has lost just three of those contests.

Key players

Virat Kohli, Babar Azam,Rohit Sharma, Mohammad Rizwan,Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Haris Rauf.

What Captains have to say before match

Rohit Sharma (India): “The mood in the camp is buzzing. It will be a challenge to play against Pakistan without a doubt. We do talk about our losses, that’s how we improve as a team. That loss [in Dubai last year] did hurt us at that point, but I think it’s been a while since that game has been played. We learn from our mistakes. For now, it’s a fresh start for us and obviously, the team is coming out of playing a lot of T20 cricket. We will not think too much about what happened in October, that was a long time back.”

Babar Azam (Pakistan): “No heat at all [between the two sides]. It’s normal and we have to adjust to everything as a professional. Every match is important for me and it is my responsibility as captain that I give my 100 percent. Injuries are part of the team. We have a good bench strength and we have a young battery of fast bowlers who have performed well and I have belief in them.”

Squad

India : Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Ravi Bishnoi

Pakistan : Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Fakhar Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Asif Ali, Mohammad Hasnain, Shadab Khan, Usman Qadir, Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah, Shahnawaz Dahani, Mohammad Nawaz, Hasan Ali, Haider Ali

Virat Kohli to quit as India’s T20 captain after the T20 world cup

Virat Kohli on Thursday announced he will step down as India’s T20 captain after the T20 World Cup in UAE but will continue to lead the side in ODIs and Test cricket.For some time, there has been speculation about Kohli’s future as white-ball captain especially in the backdrop of Rohit Sharma’s brilliant track record of winning five IPL titles for Mumbai Indians.

“I’ve decided to step down as the T20 captain after this T20 World Cup in Dubai in October,” Kohli said in a statement posted on his Twitter page. He further added “Understanding workload is a very important thing and considering my immense workload over the last 8-9 years playing all three formats and captaining regularly for last five to six years, I feel I need to give myself space to be fully ready to lead Indian team in Test and ODI cricket. I have given my everything to the Team during my time as T20 captain and I will continue to do so for the T20 team as a batsman moving forward.

Perhaps, for the first time in his captaincy career, Virat Kohli is feeling the heat. He is astute enough to see the writing on the wall where the backing for the captain by the powerful BCCI officials have diminished considerably in the last couple of months.since Sachin Tendulkar’s ODI retirement and Dhoni’s Test captaincy retirement were announced by the board’s press release) and explained the reasons behind quitting T20I captaincy. And largely you get his point, however, a deep look and putting it in the context of a power struggle in Indian cricket, there are many contradictions in his statement and it does appear that more than anything else, Kohli is trying his best to safeguard his own position as a dominant force in Indian cricket.

Virat announces this news through instagram

Is this workload behind the real reason for stepping down from T20I captaincy? Really? In the last decade, Kohli has played just 90 T20Is which is roughly 9 matches per year in the shortest format of the game. Definitely, not a huge workload if you consider that he plays around 15 matches of IPL every season inside two months, which, goes without saying the toughest on the body for any cricketer and all the more taxing for a captain. So, if someone who wants to keep himself fresh and fit, shouldn’t he be willing to give up his franchise’s captaincy (that he has not been able to lift a trophy in eight years for Royal Challengers Bangalore is a different story altogether) and sustain his India captaincy career in that format?

A very unselfish decision, says Michael Vaughan

Former England skipper Michael Vaughan has backed Virat Kohli’s decision to give up India’s T20 captaincy after the World Cup, saying that this will release some pressure off the superstar cricketer’s shoulders.

“Well Done… that’s a very unselfish decision and also one which will give you some nice space to hopefully relax a little away from all the pressures,” Vaughan replied on Kohli’s Instagram post.Kohli has a 27-14 win-loss ratio as India’s Twenty20 captain, while his Royal Challengers Bangalore team continue to chase their maiden IPL title.

Virat Kohli has yet to win a ICC trophy under his captaincy but the team’s series win under him in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, England and West Indies will remain the highlights of his leadership tenure starting 2017.As of now, opener Rohit Sharma remains the frontrunner to replace Kohli as the captain of India in the shortest format. While the Indian cricket board is not in any hurry to name a successor now, Rohit, IPL’s most successful captain with 5 titles, is likely to be elevated as India’s Twenty20 skipper.

Is the defeat in wtc acceptable? Questions arises over virat’s captaincy.

The final of the WTC(2019-2021) was played from 18 to 23 June 2021 at the Rose Bowl Southampton, England, between India and New Zealand. It was initially scheduled for five days, but time lost during the game to rain interruptions so there was a sixth day reserved for outcome of results. And as expected  the planned reserve day was used .New Zealand won the match by eight wickets to be crowned as the winners of the ICC World Test Championship                                           

After the defeat of the Indian team, the captain comes first on target . The news about the outraged  Indian fans , annoyed cricket expert and WhatsApp memes start circulating over the internet. The netizens and twitterati starts demanding that the captain should leave the capticancy. But the question arises that is it right time to take back his captaincy? Or if he is removed from the captaincy then do we have any good option for his replacement? But before making any conclusions , let’s have a look over virat’s captaincy record.

Virat has captained 61 test with a winning percentage of 59.01% , which includes 36 wins ,15 losses and 10draws . He is having second best winning percentage as a captain among all current playing captains. When talked about oneday cricked , virat has a win percentage of about 70% , which includes 65 wins. His win percentage in T20 cricket is 65.1% which includes 27 wins. It’s just unfortunate that virat has lost couple of icc trophies even with sach a fantastic record in mordern day cricket .

What’s the experts view?

“The decision of making and removing someone from captaincy cannot be taken emotionally. If someone asks to remove virat from captaincy then can we remove him on the basis of single match? When talked about the record, virat has won 36 matches . I personally feel that just because of loosing single match we should not overreact. There was our mistakes, batting mistake , team management mistake . If we actually talk about the captaincy debate then it is quite clear that it will happen in T20 cricket. But even it’s not right time to discuss over T20 cricket now because world cup commencing and if we continue these debate then cricket would be harmed the most. I feel that virat is captain and the world cup plan is designed with him . If the india looses the World cup then it’s sure that Rohit would be made captain of T20 format.” Said the cricketing expert Vikrant Gupta.

“Do we have any alternative for captaincy? Is there any better option for virat’s replacement? Is there anyone who can score runs consistently and can do captiancy like him in a pressure situation. I don’t think that it’s right time to remove him from his captiancy.” Said the indian sport journalist vijay Lokapally.

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