Into his first World Cup as the captain of the Indian team, Rohit Sharma got caught in a bit of a 'World Cup fever' when he was asked about the team composition for the match against Pakistan. Announcing his team, Rohit revealed that he is fielding 7 batters, 1 all-rounder, 3 seamers, and 2 spinners. Rohit didn't quite realise that the sum total of the number of players he named comes out to be 13, and not 11. His comments at the toss have become a subject of jokes on social media.
The Indian cricket team decided to leave out Yuzvendra Chahal and Harshal Patel on the bench, while picking up Ravichandran Ashwin and Mohammed Shami in the playing XI.
Rohit said at the time of toss: "We are going to field first. Looks like a good pitch, it's always nice to bowl with overcast conditions. Think the ball will swing around a bit, and we need to take its advantage. Preparations have been good. We played a couple of practice games in Brisbane. Time to come out and enjoy ourselves now.
"We were expecting nothing less than this, hopefully, we'll entertain them (the crowd). We have seven batters, an allrounder, three seamers and two spinners."
Rohit's comments have left the Twitterverse baffled, as fans pointed out that the India skipper named 13 players in his team for the match.
Pakistan skipper Babar Azam, on the other hand, admitted that he would've wanted to bowl first too but will be aiming to put a total of 160-170 runs on the board.
"Toss is not in our hands, but we would have liked to bowl first as well. We'll try to post around 160-170. We have prepared well, and we are ready for this big game. We had a T20 series back home (against England), we played a tri-series in New Zealand, so we are prepared. We have three fast bowlers and two spinners," he said during the toss.
India struck early with the ball as Arshdeep Singh dismissed both Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan for cheap.