ISLAMABAD: In the opening match of the 2023 Asia Cup on Wednesday, Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat against Nepal.
The Multan Cricket Stadium is hosting the Asia Cup opener, marking Pakistan’s role as the regional cricket event’s host after a 15-year gap.
Both Nepal and Multan are making their Asia Cup debut, with the teams facing each other for the first time at such a significant level.
Adding to the excitement, Pakistan enters the Asia Cup with a strong momentum, securing the top position in the ICC rankings for ODI teams on Saturday. Also, this achievement follows their impeccable 3-0 victory over Afghanistan in Sri Lanka. It’s the second time that the Pakistan team has claimed the top spot in the chart since April.
Pakistan captain Babar Azam said at the toss, “We will bat first, the pitch looks very dry and shiny. No reason to name the XI earlier, we wanted to give confidence to our team. To be honest, being the top-ranked team brings a good kind of pressure, we’ll try to enjoy and do our bes.,”
Lineups
Nepal: Kushal Bhurtel, Aasif Sheikh (wk), Rohit Paudel (c), Aarif Sheikh, Kushal Malla, Dipendra Singh Airee, Gulsan Jha, Sompal Kami, Karan KC, Sandeep Lamichhane, Lalit Rajbanshi
Pakistan: Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf.
