The Indian cricket team captain Rohit Sharma sprung a big surprise at the toss of the Asia Cup 2022 match against Pakistan on Sunday when he announced that Dinesh Karthik would be playing in the XI ahead of regular wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant. "Having played here for a few years now, I thought having a score in front of us would be a good option. There is some grass covering and we want to exploit it. Rishabh Pant unfortunately misses out, we got out with Karthik. Avesh is the third seamer," Rohit said at the toss.
Rohit Sharma opted to bowl against Pakistan, who has given young pacer Naseem Shah a debut T20I cap. "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. There are a few new faces, and some old faces in that Indian team. We are trying to give it our best," Pakistan captain Babar Azam said.
India Playing XI: 1 Rohit Sharma(capt), 2 KL Rahul, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Avesh Khan, 10 Yuzvendra Chahal, 11 Arshdeep Singh
Pakistan Playing XI: 1 Babar Azam (capt), 2 Mohammad Rizwan (wk) 3, Fakhar Zaman, 4 Iftikhar Ahmed, 5 Khushdil Shah, 6 Asif Ali, 7 Shadab Khan, 8 Mohammad Nawaz, 9 Naseem Shah, 10 Haris Rauf, 11 Shahnawaz Dahani