 Indian team after winning the Common Wealth Bank triangular series in Australia will start their ODI campaign again from the today’s big match between two arch rivals. Since last two months Indian players were involved in currently held IPL and now M.S. Dhoni and his men will have to quickly get back into the ODI mode to stop the Pakistan’s 12 consecutive match winning streak. Pakistan is flying high after beating Bangladesh quite comprehensively in their first league match of triangular series to extend their unbeaten streak to 12 matches and it will require lots of effort from Men in blue to halt the arch rivals winning streak. Indian team who is playing without their master batsman Sachin Tendulkar and their dashing openers Virendra Sehwag is likely to miss the game due to viral fever. Both teams feel this tournament as their warm up games before the big Asia Cup to be held in Pakistan from June 24th. Pitch at Shere Bangla Stadium is full of runs. No doubt, the Indian team has the batting strength to score heavily on a strip like this but it remains to be seen how their bowlers contain hard hitters like Salman Butt, Kamran Akmal, Misbah-ul-Haq, Younis Khan and Muhammad Yousuf. The much-anticipated contest meanwhile faces a major threat from the weather gods. The opener itself was truncated because of intermittent drizzle and this match too could see rain interruptions. Pakistan have few new faces like W.Riaz who performed exceptionally well during the match against Bangladeh but S.Tanveer the purple cap winner and his partner Umar Gul were not up to the mark and these are few worrying things which needs to be orted out before today’s game gets under way. Pitch Report
The pitch at Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur is likely to assist batsman and in that case both teams new bowl bowler will be tested. Indian team have Irfan Pathan and Ishant Sharma, both bowlers can swing the ball on the other hand Pakistan have Sohail Tanveer and Umar Gul with both can take the wickets with the new ball. Team News Pakistan team is likely to stick with same XI as they played against Bangladesh in Sunday’s match. On the other hand Indian team is likely to give the opportunities to few new faces like Yusuf Pathan and P.Ojha to test their nerves in the big match at International levels. Likely Playing XI for both the teams (Match will start from 14:30 PM India time) India: V.Sehwag, G.Gambhir, R.Uthappa, Y.Singh, M.S.Dhoni (Captain), Y.Pathan, I.Pathan, P.Kumar, P.Chawla, P.Ojha, I.Sharma. Pakistan: Kamran Akmal (WK), S. Butt, Younis Khan, Md. Yusuf, Misbah-Ul-Haq, S. Mallik (Captain), S.Afridi, F.Alam, U.Gul, S.Tanveer, Wahab Riaz. |
