Pakistan's Shaheen Afridi who has troubled India's batting line-up has been ruled out of the 2022 edition of the Asia Cup.He suffered from a right knee ligament injury while fielding during the last month's Test match against Sri Lanka and has been advised to rest for 4-6 weeks.
India is set to play the first match of the tournament against arch-rivals Pakistan on the 28th of August. Both the teams will be geared up and will eye a win in the opening match.
From 1984 to 2018, India and Pakistan have played against each other 14 times in the Asia Cup. There was no result in one match. In the remaining 13 matches, India won 8 matches and Pakistan won 5 matches.
According to fans, Shaheen's absence from the upcoming tournament is expected to provide some relief to the men in blue. The news spread as wildfire and Twitter got flooded with sarcasm.
I have spoken with Shaheen and he is understandably upset with the news, but he is a brave young man who has vowed to come back strongly to serve his country and team," PCB Chief Medical Officer, Dr Najeebullah Soomro said.
"Although he has made progress during his rehabilitation in Rotterdam, it is now clear he will require more time and is likely to return to competitive cricket in October, he added.
Afridi will remain with his country's team as he completes his rehabilitation. A replacement for 22-year-old Afridi is yet to be announced.
Full squads for Asia Cup -
India: Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan.
Standbys: Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Deepak Chahar.
Pakistan: Babar Azam, Shadab Khan, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed,Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir.
