India win toss, opt to bowl first against Pakistan

India won the toss and chose to bowl first against their arch-rival Pakistan in the nail-biting match in the ICC Men’s World Cup tournament at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Saturday.

Shubman Gill, as expected, is back to make his World Cup debut after recovering from dengue. On the other hand, Pakistan have named an unchanged XI for the big match.

Pakistan have never won against India in the World Cup in their seven outings since 1992.

India remain behind in their overall ODI head-to-heads against Pakistan with 56 wins and 73 losses but have clearly been the stronger team in recent meetings.

Rohit’s men hammered Pakistan by 228 runs in their Asia Cup Super Four clash last month and went on to win the regional tournament.

Playing XIs

India XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Lokesh Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

Pakistan XI: Abdullah Shafique, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Mohammad Nawaz, Shadab Khan (vc), Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf