T20 World Cup 2021: Pakistan skipper Babar Azam wins toss, opts to bowl first against India

Pakistan won the toss and opted to bowl first against India in Match No 16 of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2021. Skipper Babar Azam said that they would look to take early wickets and the dew factor also affected his decision to chase.

 Toss Update

Pakistan have elected to bowl against #TeamIndia. #T20WorldCup #INDvPAK

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— BCCI (@BCCI) October 24, 2021

India skipper Virat Kohli said that he would have also liked to bowl first but said that their team is balanced in such a way that they are prepared for it since the toss isn't in their control. Kohli said that the pitch looked pretty different from how it was in the IPL as the grass isn't there and is evenly rolled.

Pakistan left out middle-order batter Haider Ali from their 12 announced one day before. India, on the other hand, left out Ravichandran Ashwin, Rahul Chahar, Shardul Thakur and Ishan Kishan from their squad, which meant they were playing all three of their frontline seamers with Ravindra Jadeja and Varun Chakravarthy sharing the spin bowling duties.

Playing XIs

India: Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli (c), Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy

Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Asif Ali, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali, Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi

 Team News 

Here's #TeamIndia's Playing XI #T20WorldCup #INDvPAK

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— BCCI (@BCCI) October 24, 2021