Saturday, March 17, 2012

Pakistan vs India Asia Cup 2012

India is to meet Pakistan Sunday to find a place for itself in the final of the ongoing Asia Cup in Dacca, Bangladesh. Pakistan having won both of its matches against the hosts and the Lankans has already made its place in the finals.

Indian camp is though much trumpeted about the 100th 100 of Tendulkar against Bangladesh, has nevertheless has lost the match miserably, being the hot favourite of the on going Asia Cup. In fact the Indians would have never ever thought of losing tho the hosts ever and must be still in a shock over what the hosts did to them.

As for India, Sunday's match with Pakistan is very crucial - they have to win it to reach the final. In case they do not, and Sri Lanka manages to win over the hosts, then all three teams will have four points each. In that case the decision as to which team out of the three reaches final, will depend on the set run rate.

With the defeat at the hands of Bangladesh at the back of their minds, India thus plays its most crucial match of the tournament against Pakistan and would naturally be under tremendous pressure while playing the Pakistan team.

Tendulkar will be the main threat to Pakistan as he has always played better against Pakistan and after feeling easy and relaxed having had his 100th 100, he is likely to play his natural game and score too. While the Indian batsmen have played well so far, their bowlers haven't shown any remarkable bowling - something which just the opposite case with Pakistan wherein bowlers have bowled extremely well, but it is their batsmen who have let them down with their ODIs/T20 against England lately. 

Sunday's duel comes almost a year after both Pakistan and India met at Mohali last March. A lot has changed since then. Let us watch the game Sunday tomorrow and see who surprises who - or are there any surprises at all?
The match will be played at the usual Shere Bangla Stadium Mirpur, Dacca and will commence at 08:00 GMT.


Likely team composition:
India: Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (c/wk), Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Irfan Pathan, R Ashwin, Vinay Kumar, Praveen Kumar.
Pakistan: Mohammad Hafeez, Nasir Jamshed, Younis Khan, Asad Shafiq, Misbah-ul-Haq (c), Umar Akmal, Shahid Afridi, Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), Umar Gul, Saeed Ajmal, Aizaz Cheema.

0 comments: