The biggest game of the tournament and perhaps the year will be seen today afternoon at the MCG. India and Pakistan have already met twice this year during the 2022 Asia Cup with Pakistan winning once and India winning once. Last year the men in green beat India for the first time in the World Cups by 10 wickets while chasing 152. India on the other hand are looking for revenge and want to make a good start to the tournament.
Venue – Melbourne cricket ground
Time of the match – 1: 30 PM IST
Likely Pitch condition – Melbourne and Victoria in particular has been seeing inclement weather for a few days. The pitch is a drop in one and as said by the curator it was installed 3 weeks ago. The average score at the MCG is 141 and on paper it is a chase to win result giving venue.
Likely India XI –
Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Surya Kumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik (WK), Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami, Arshdeep Singh and Yuzvendra Chahal
Likely Pakistan XI –
B. Azam (Captain), M. Rizwan, F. Zaman, M. Nawaz, H. Ali, A. Ali, I. Ahmed, S. Khan, S. Afridi, H. Rauf and N. Shah
Head to Head record –
Games won by India – 8
Games won by Pakistan – 3
Melbourne Cricket Ground T20I record –
Games played -15
Matches won by home team -9
Matches won by visiting / neutral team – 5
No result -1
Matches won after batting first – 5
Matches won after batting 2nd – 9
Matches won after winning toss – 7
Matches won after losing toss – 7
Highest score at MCG – David Warner – 89 vs South Africa
Best bowling at MCG – Josh Hazlewood – 4/30 vs England
Highest team score at MCG – 184 by India vs Australia
Lowest team score at MCG – 74 by India vs Australia
Approaching milestone –
·KL Rahul needs 9 more sixes to reach 100 mark in T20I Cricket
·Hardik Pandya needs 11 runs to reach the 1000 run mark in T20I cricket
·Yuzvendra Chahal and Bhuvneshwar Kumar both need 1 wicket to go past Saeed Ajmal, S. Lammichhane and Umar Gul to be ranked in the top ten bowlers in T20I cricket
·Mohammad Rizwan needs 40 more runs to score 2500 runs in T20I cricket
·Fakhar Zaman needs 5 more sixes to reach the 50 mark in T20I cricket
·Haider Ali needs 3 more runs to reach 500 mark in T20I cricket
·Shaheen Afridi needs 3 more wickets to reach 50 wickets in T20I cricket