A confident India, well adjusted to the world of T20 cricket will seek to take advantage of Pakistan’s unpredictability and being strangers in New York.
The flagship match of the tournament is slated for the newly constructed 34,000-seater Nassau County International Cricket Stadium at Eisenhower Park in suburbs of New York.
The 22-yard strip is being widely discussed ahead of this eagerly awaited clash after it had already attracted a lot of criticism about its unpredictability which has since been acknowledged by ICC.
Only twice have teams scored more than 100 runs in all six innings played at the stadium so far. Some former players have openly questioned whether low scoring games would help market cricket through showcase events in America.
However, these pitches are not yet completely stable even though they were laid down by Damian Hough before April who was then the Adelaide Oval groundskeeper.
This pitch that bounces irregularly has also raised questions about player safety especially when Indian captain Rohit Sharma could not continue batting during their first game against Ireland on June 5 due to an injury on his shoulder.
“To be honest I don’t know what to expect from the pitch. We will prepare ourselves as if the situations are going to be like this (for Pakistan game). This match should be such that everybody out there must contribute,” said Rohit after playing Ireland.
As a result, ICC released a statement on the following day after India’s game aimed at allaying fears regarding these particular pitches for T20 World Cup in New York.
“The ICC recognize that we haven’t seen pitches play consistently enough at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium yet,” read a part of their statement.
But Pakistani squad has not adapted itself to conditions in Nassau Stadium yet.
They flew into New York after losing unexpectedly to USA in their Thursday’s fixture and rested on Friday as well.
Thus, Babar Azam and his team mates have had hardly any time adjusting themselves with these challenging conditions which might prove a disadvantage to them in this important match.
In addition, their chances of qualifying for the competition could be severely hampered if they lose out to India.
The Indian think tank decided to go with one extra specialist fast bowler instead of Kuldeep Yadav who was not included in the playing XI against Ireland.
The same approach is expected on Sunday especially as this game will most likely be played on an underutilized centre turf. On June 8, South Africa will take on the Netherlands at the Nassau stadium on a different pitch.
Nevertheless, Kuldeep could still be added by team management due to his form and potential favourable match-ups against Pakistani batters, particularly Babar.
If not, then either Ravindra Jadeja or Axar Patel would be forced to sit out. The batting lineup is already finalized with Rishabh Pant at No. 3 and Rohit and Virat Kohli as openers.
Pakistan on the other hand would be trying to get their act together after the first shock.
Hosts emerged victorious in the Super Over against USA, proving how famously unpredictable they can be.
Even though Babar blames bowlers for loss mostly, he cannot ignore there poor performance by team’s batsmen including himself.
The skipper took 44 balls to score 43 runs which is a pathetic strike rate for T20 format of cricket. He would want to do better than this
India pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah stated that it wouldn’t come as a surprise if the killer version of Pakistan’s bowling attack led by Shaheen Afridi shows up this Sunday and gets the team’s campaign back on track following the Ireland game stringent Security Measures.
Strict security measures have been put in place by local authorities in response to an ISIS terrorist threat that was received before the start of this high-profile tournament.
In recent remarks made to the media, Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder described them as “elaborate” comparing them with presidential level security measures.
Ryder said, “The scale and magnitude of the security for this India-Pakistan match will be more compared to when we hosted the USA President Barack Obama some years ago.”
Moreover, extensive security plans for this game involved personnel from FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, US Customs and Border Protection as well as Nassau County Police in Suffolk County New York State.
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Sanju Samson,” Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Abrar Ahmed, Azam Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf,” Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim,” Mohammad Abbas Afridi”,” Mohammad Amir”, ‘Mohammad Rizwan’,” Naseem Shah’’, Saim Ayub,’ Shadab Khan,’ Shaheen Shah Afridi,’ Usman Khan’
Match starts: 8 pm IST
