Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah will be two of the key players for India in the ongoing Asia Cup. Team India will be starting its campaign in the tournament on September 2 at the Pallekele International Stadium. Pakistan are coming off a huge 238-run win and will be confident of doing well against the arch-rivals as well. However, Pakistan will have to be aware not only of Virat Kohli but also of Rohit and the injury returnee Bumrah. Both of them have exceptional record in Pallekele in One-Day Internationals.
India have played a total of three ODIs at the venue winning two and losing one. They last played at the venue in the two ODIs back in 2017 and on both occasions, India won both the matches comfortably. Bumrah was the star picking up a total of nine wickets. He first returned with the figures of 4/43 and then bettered it with 5/27 in the next game helping India restrict Sri Lanka for low totals. Bumrah is once again back to the same venue after six years and is gearing up to make a comeback to the ODIs now.
On the other hand, Rohit Sharma scored 178 runs in two matches he played at the venue including a century and a half-century. Both players have not played much of ODI cricket of late but given their record in Pallekele, Pakistan certainly shouldn't take things for granted. It will be interesting to see how the duo performs this time at the venue.
India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Axar Patel, Suryakumar Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Tilak Varma
Pakistan squad: Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Faheem Ashraf, Mohammad Haris, Mohammad Wasim Jr, Abdullah Shafique, Saud Shakeel, Usama Mir
