India vs Pakistan, T20 World Cup: Rohit Sharma Explains Reason Behind Decision To Field First

India captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and opted to field first in the crucial encounter against Pakistan in Melbourne on Sunday. Rohit is leading India in an ICC tournament for the first time and it is a big occasion for him and the team as they look to replicate the success of MS Dhoni's team, which had beaten Pakistan to win the 2007 ICC T20 World Cup. Rohit is the only surviving member from that champion team and played an important cameo in the final against Pakistan in 2007.

Rohit spoke after winning the toss and also informed that India had decided to go in with 7 batters in the playing XI.

"We are going to field first. Looks like a good pitch, it's always nice with overcast conditions. Think the ball will swing around a bit. Preparations have been good. We played a couple of practice games in Brisbane. Time to come out and enjoy ourselves. We were expecting nothing less than this, hopefully we'll entertain them. We have seven batters, three seamers and two spinners," Rohit said.

Pakistan captain Babar Azam said that he would have liked to field first also. He said that the team would look to post 160 to 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," Babar said.

India: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh

Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan, Shan Masood, Shadab Khan, Haider Ali, Iftikhar Ahmad, Mohammad Nawaz, Asif Ali, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf

Topics mentioned in this article

India Cricket Team Pakistan Cricket Team ICC T20 World Cup 2022 India vs Pakistan, Super 12 - Match 4 Ravichandran Ashwin Mohammad Shami Rohit Sharma Babar Azam Cricket