In the ICC Champions Trophy at Birmingham, Pakistan have won the toss and elected to field first against India.
Pakistan won only their second toss against India in nine international matches since the start of 2013 and elected to field with rain forecast for later in the day. They went for the X-factor of Shadab Khan`s legspin over the batting of Faheem Ashraf. Wahab Riaz found a place in their XI ahead of Junaid Khan, who has an excellent record against India`s captain Virat Kohli: 22 balls, two runs and three wickets.
For Kohli`s India, the opening pair that set up their Champions Trophy win in 2013 was reunited: Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan. Perhaps with weather around, perhaps tempted by the excellent form of the quicks, India left R Ashwin out of the XI, playing only one specialist spinner in Ravindra Jadeja. Among the quicks, Mohammed Shami missed out.
India: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Virat Kohli (capt.), 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 MS Dhoni (wk), 6 Kedar Jadhav, 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Bhunveshwar Kumar, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Umesh YadavPakistan: 1 Azhar Ali, 2 Ahmed Shehzad, 3 Babar Azam, 4 Mohammad Hafeez, 5 Shoaib Malik, 6 Sarfaraz Ahmed (capt. & wk), 7 Imad Wasim, 8 Shadab Khan, 9 Mohammad Amir, 10 Wahab Riaz, 11 Hasan Ali
Source : Agencies