India and Pakistan are clashing in the Super 4s stage encounter in Colombo on September 10 in the ongoing Asia Cup 2023 tournament. This is the second match between these two sides in the tournament, as the first one was a no result due to rain in Kandy.
This is India’s first Super 4s encounter, while Pakistan was coming off a comprehensive win over Bangladesh in Lahore.
Babar Azam won the toss and chose to bowl first and revealed that Pakistan was playing with the same XI that conquered the Bangladeshi side in Lahore a few days ago.
Rohit Sharma, on the other hand, revealed that India had made two changes. Jasprit Bumrah returned to the XI after missing the Nepal game for the birth of his child and replaced Mohammad Shami.
Shreyas Iyer suffered back spasms during the team warmups before the toss and was replaced last minute in the XI by KL Rahul.
India openers Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill started cautiouly, but soon started taking on the Pakistani bowlers with Gill taking the initiative first. The Punjab batter hit Shaheen Afridi for three fours in the 3rd over and repeated the feat in the 5th over.
He reached his fifty in just 37 balls.
On the other hand, Rohit Sharma was a bit subdued as he faced a tough spell by Naseem Shah and though he had hit a six in the first over by Shaheen, he had to bide his time a bit.
He finally broke through against Shadab Khan in the 13th over, hitting him for 2 sixes and one four in the 13th over and then hitting him for one more six and four in the 15th over. Rohit Sharma also brought up his fifty in 42 balls. This was also his 50th half-century in ODIs.
But Shadab had the last laugh as he dismissed Rohit Sharma for 56 runs after he had added 121 runs. Shubman Gill followed him soon, dismissed by Shaheen Afridi for 58.
The cricket fraternity was all praises for the Indian openers who both gave the team a flying start.
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