Asia Cup 2018: Can India put a stiff challenge to Pakistan in Dubai today

Asia Cup 2018: Can India put a stiff challenge to Pakistan in Dubai today?

The last time India and Pakistan met was in the ICC Champions Trophy final on June 18, 2017, at the Oval in London

Dubai: India’s Shikhar Dhawan plays a shot during the one day international cricket match of Asia Cup 2018 between India and Hong Kong

Asia cup 2018 : In Match 5 of Asia Cup 2018, Rohit Sharma’s India will up against their arch rival Pakistan led by Sarfaraz Ahmed at Dubai International Stadium in United Arab Emirates. Indian cricket team will look to correct the mistakes they did against Hong Kong on Tuesday. India might make change in their playing 11 bringing in Jasprit Bumrah in place of Shardul Thakur and Hardik Pandya would replace Khaleel Ahmed. On the other hand, Pakistan will be high on confidence after crushing Hong Kong in their first game of the tournament.

India Team News • The major concern for India is their middle order batters as in their previous game, Dinesh Karthik and Kedar Jadhav were not able to hit big shots in the death overs while Dhoni was dismissed out for a duck. On the bowling front, Bhuvneshwar Kumar looked rusty in his opening spell leaking too many runs while the spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzuvendra Chahal bowled superbly in the middle overs to bring India back in the game against Hong Kong. Jasprit Bumrah likely to replace Shardul Thakur, who bowled 3 No balls in an over which somehow shifted the momentum in opposition favour.

Pakistan Team News •

For Pakistan, Asia Cup is the start of a busy season. Right after the multination tournament, they will play home series against Australia and New Zealand, followed by a full tour of South Africa. Coming after an extended break, the Pakistan Cricket team started their Asia Cup campaign by crushing Hong Kong in Pool A first game on Sunday. The trend suggests that once Pakistan are in the groove they are hard to stop. Pakistan has a combination of experienced players and young talented players like Fakhar Zaman who is coming after a fantastic ODI series in Zimbabwe where he finished as the leading run-getter with 515 runs.

↓↓↓ Here are the playing 11 of both teams ↓↓↓ India Vs Pakistan