Highlighting that India should have forced them over Pakistan in the 2021 T20 World Cup game, former New Zealand all-rounder Scott Styris has warned the Rohit Sharma-drove side to not play defensive cricket this time around.
Asia Cup will begin on August 27 in UAE while the opening game of the tournament will be played between Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.
The fans are eagerly waiting for the group stage high-octane clash between Pakistan and India, which will be played on August 28 in Dubai. The last time the two sides met in T20 World Cup 2021, Pakistan badly defeated the Indian side by 10 wickets.
The last edition of the Asia Cup was played in an ODI format while this time the mega event will be played in the T20I format.
While highlighting that India should have forced them over Pakistan in the 2021 T20 World Cup game, former New Zealand all-rounder Scott Styris has warned the Rohit Sharma-drove side to not play defensive cricket this time around.
“Well, as we know, India has a very strong T20 league as well. I think it’s the ability to come together and play the style and brand of cricket that best suits your players. I thought that was the big trick that India missed at the last T20 World Cup as it took them about two games,”
said Scott Styris on Sports18’s daily show ‘Sports Over The Top’.
After the loss to Pakistan, India also lost to New Zealand at the T20 World Cup. However, they played an attacking brand of cricket post that, and the underlying losses ultimately got them far from fixing a semi-final spot.
“The two losses they had before they just started to go after the opposition, impose themselves with the talent and skill that they’ve got. I want to see India do that in this Asia Cup. I want them to impose themselves on the other teams and l they can do that, I think they’ve got the ability to squash everybody, including Pakistan, in this Asia Cup. But if they’re going to go into this with this middling attitude of how they want to play the game, then I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think that’s where Pakistan has figured things out a little bit more,”
Styris added.
India: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan.
Standby: Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Deepak Chahar.
Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir, Mohammad Hasnain.