Pakistan's captain, Babar Azam is optimistic to kick-start the team's T20 World Cup 2021 campaign thumping up versus India as the two teams are catalogued to open their event's journey on 24th October facing each other.
The arch-rivals do not meet each other in bilateral series and only have been seen playing during ICC, ACC events. Both the teams are positivist to win it big this time as India look to continue their winning streak versus men in green in World Cup whereas, Azam and men are looking to turn the tables this time.
During a virtual press conference, Babar added that the team is planning to handle the pressure of facing India. He counts Pak vs Ind as an 'all-important' clash for the men in green.
"We should focus on our all-important clash against India and bring plans to handle the pressure against India as well as other important matches so we can lift this year’s world cup trophy," he said.
"We are giving our best short in preparing ourselves for the mega-event as we are playing practice matches."
Notably, the T20 World Cup is going to be the first big tournament since the COVID pandemic. It is scheduled to initiate with Round 1, Group Stage from 17th October. The Super 12 round will begin on 23rd October. All the matches will be contested across Oman, UAE stadiums despite the fact that the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) are the original host for the event. India could not host the event following the COVID outbreak in the country.
Here are the complete squads for India and Pakistan:
India:
Squad: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami, Shardul Thakur
Reserves: Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar, Axar Patel; Mentor: MS Dhoni
Pakistan:
Squad: Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Imad Wasim, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shoaib Malik.
Travelling Reserves: Khushdil Shah, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir.
Also, see:
Shoaib Malik named as a replacement of Sohaib Maqsood in Pakistan T20 World Cup Squad
