India takes on Pakistan on Sunday in the first of the next set of matches being played at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Every time these two countries play each other, it attracts the maximum eyeballs and is even the summit clash of the tournament, perhaps next to, or sometimes even more, only to the knockouts or even the finals. The last time the two teams met was in the ODI World Cup earlier this year, where India made short work of the Pakistan team handing them a crushing defeat by 107 runs.
What have they done so far?
India will be coming to this heartbroken after losing a game that they should have won, having Australia on the mat at 49/5 at one point and 110/7 at another, before their allrounder Ashleigh Gardner played a blinder to take them to a win.
They would still take heart from the fact that their openers Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana along with their captain Harmanpreet Kaur looked in good touch. They would be worried about their defence in the bowling department though. The fact that they lost despite Renuka Singh and Deepti Sharma having wonderful games would worry them. They will want to tighten the leash, especially in the middle overs.
Pakistan too is entering this game following a shock defeat in their opening game against Barbados, a game that most would have expected them to win. They would have themselves to blame though – as they allowed the Barbados batters to settle down, which allowed them to set up a defendable target and while chasing, a poor start meant that they were playing the catching game throughout and despite their star player Nadia scoring a brisk half-century, they still fell behind by 15 runs.
With the format of the tournament, a second defeat for either of the teams would likely mean the end of the road for them. More so, for Pakistan, as the final game is against the World Cup champions Australia and they would have to play out of their skins if they are to beat them after losing to Barbados and India.
India, on the other hand, needs to win against Barbados in any case, considering that Australia is not likely to lose to Pakistan and Barbados both, so a defeat here may not fully rule them out but they would not want to tempt fate and will want to go to into the last league match on the back of a win.
Team News
India batter S Meghana has joined the team after recovering from Covid-19 while all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar is still in quarantine and is expected to fly to the UK tomorrow. As for Pakistan they have all their 15 members available and will likely play the same XI from their 1st encounter.
Head to Head record
This clash will be the 12th time the two sides go head to head with India having one nine of their previous 11 with Pakistan having won two. The two sides last went head to head in an ICC T20 Women’s World Cup in 2018, a game India won by seven wickets.
Key Players
India will be hoping that Smriti Mandhana gets them off to a bright start
Smriti Mandhana (India): looked in fabulous touch in her relatively short stay at the crease scoring 24 off 17 balls and would consider herself unlucky to have got out slashing at what would appear to have been a bad ball that should have been punished to the boundary. She would be looking to finish what she has started and helped her team cross the line this time.
Anam Amin (Pakistan): has been around for a while and has been one of the leading forces on the back of which the Pakistan bowling has often relied upon. She has always been economical, but her team would want her to contribute by adding more to the wickets column and no stage better than the marquee game against India to showcase what she can do under testing circumstances.
Predicted Playing XI
India: Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Yastika Bhatia (wk), Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Sneh Rana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Meghna Singh, Renuka Singh, Harleen Deol, Radha Yadav
Pakistan: Iram Javed, Muneeba Ali, Omaima Sohail, Bismah Maroof (c), Nida Dar, Aliya Riaz, Ayesha Naseem, Fatima Sana, Tuba Hassan, Diana Baig, Anam Amin
Prediction
A high-octane clash awaits us as two fierce rivals go head to head. Team India will go into this contest as the better of the two teams on the basis of their head to head. The Indian batters and bowlers will need to come together as a unit however to ensure that they ease through victory.