The anticipation around the high-stakes India versus Pakistan Asia Cup final was only too palpable as India skipper Suryakumar Yadav won the toss in Dubai on Sunday as the match commenced. India has opted to bowl against Pakistan.
The toss interviews were conducted by Ravi Shastri and Waqar Younis with the India and Pakistan captains separately after PCB’s request to Asian Cricket Council to keep a neutral presenter for the title clash.
While India’s all-rounder Hardik Pandya will miss the final with a niggle, Rinku Singh and Shivam Dube came in for Harshit Rana and Arshdeep Singh.
Pakistan retained the same eleven from the last match.
India’s team includes Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tilak Varma, Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, and Varun Chakravarthy.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s team comprises Fakhar Zaman, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha (c), Hussain Talat, Mohammad Haris (wk), Mohammad Nawaz, Faheem Ashraf, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, and Abrar Ahmed.
In the past two decades, India has marched ahead in at least 12 T20s between the two teams. It has also emerged victorious in each of their last seven white-ball meetings.
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After India’s six-wicket win in the Super Four stage, Suryakumar Yadav had asserted that this was “no longer a rivalry”.
Pakistan is under tremendous pressure this time, since Salman Agha’s men will not just have to put in their best performance, but also hope that India is off-colour.
In a first, captains speak to presenters from their respective countries at toss
There was no love lost between the Indian and Pakistani teams even prior to the mega final of the Asia Cup as was evident in Pakistan’s team sent in a request to the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) for a neutral presenter.
This is the first time in the history of international cricket that two former players – India’s Ravi Shastri and Pakistan’s Waqar Younis – will be conducting the toss interview as Pakistan didn’t want to speak to Indian presenter Shastri following the bitter build-up to the title clash.
The broadcasters said Shastri, who has done the toss presentation during the earlier two Indo-Pak games in the tournament, had been assigned to speak to both Suryakumar Yadav and Salman Ali Agha after the toss.
When the ACC went back to BCCI with the request, they had clearly mentioned that Shastri can’t be replaced.
It was then decided that Pakistan skipper Salman would speak to his country’s pace legend Waqar, while Surya would interact with former India head coach Shastri.
In another departure from convention, Salman did the trophy shoot alone instead of doing alongside his Indian counterpart.
As per sources in the BCCI, the ACC had never informed them about the toss photo-shoot. It must be mentioned that even during the 2024 T20 World Cup final in Barbados, there were no photoshoots involving India and South African skippers Rohit Sharma and Aiden Marrkram.
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