India vs Pakistan, Asia Cup 2022 Super 4 Highlights: PAK beat IND by 5 wickets in thriller for the ages

Slow delivery from Naseem Shah first up in the third over but Rahul has seen that early. He leans into a cover drive and lifts it over wide long-off. The Indian openers have Pakistan's number at the moment. 

Talk about good starts. Rahul tried to go over the top as well, couldn't get the distance but the ball landed in no-man's land as well. India have decided to come out all guns blazing. 

Lifts Mohammad Hasnain over mid-on with typical Rohit Sharma elegance. The Indian captain looks like he is on song here, quite ominous for Pakistan. 

Effortless from Rohit. Length delivery that comes up to his knees, Rohit simply picks it up and sends it flying over midwicket. India take 11 runs from the first over. 

Rohit left the first ball he faced, which did move into him after pitching outside off. Then he charges down the pitch and smashes it over cover for the first boundary of the match. The captain is off the mark. 

He defends the first ball, no double golden duck then against Pakistan in this tournament. Then he cuts the second to third man to take a single. 

KL Rahul takes guard with Rohit Sharma at the other end. Naseem Shah bowls the first over.

Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul had their pads on during the national anthem, surprises there. After the national anthem, the Pakistan players get into the huddle and wait for the Indian openers to walk out. They do eventually and we are now seconds away from the first ball. The stadium is absolutely heaving with fans wearing their colours standing beside each other. It's all cricket here. 

Right then, the players have lined up in front of the pitch. The Pakistan national anthem plays out first, followed by India's. 

After Virat Kohli at No.3 come Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya and Deepak Hooda. It remains to be seen if the positions of Yadav and Pant or Pandya and Hooda will be reversed but that is quite a daunting set of batters for Pakistan to deal with.  

Cheteshwar Pujara says on ESPNCricinfo that it may have been Deepak Hooda's batting skills that helped him get the nod ahead of Axar Patel. On a pitch like this, the focus could be on the pacers and it means that Hooda may have to bowl about 2 overs at the most. 

Scott Styris says on Star Sports that the short boundary is about 62 metres while the longer boundary is 74 metres. 

It was India who had won the toss the last time around but they did have to slog it out till the last over to win the match. This was not quite the case in the match before that, which happened just under a year ago at the same ground in the T20 World Cup, where Babar Azam won the toss and then led his team to a 10-wicket win. 

“We would have bowled first, but now we need to play freely and assess a good score on this pitch. Momentum counts in this format, you've to be on the money from the start, not worry about external pressures. Injury is something we can't control, Jadeja has been ruled out and he's back home. It was a headache to select the playing XI - Hardik comes back. Deepak Hooda gets a game and so does Ravi Bishnoi.”

“We will bowl first. The dew could be a factor, that's the reason we're bowling first. We had a lot of positives from the last match against India. The message is to play positively - one change for us with (Muhammad) Hasnain coming in”

Mohammad Rizwan(w), Babar Azam(c), Fakhar Zaman, Khushdil Shah, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Asif Ali, Mohammad Nawaz, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Hasnain, Naseem Shah

KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma(c), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant(w), Deepak Hooda, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ravi Bishnoi, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh

It is Dinesh Karthik and Avesh Khan who have been dropped apart from the injured Ravindra Jadeja sitting out. Needless to say, Rohit also said that Hardik Pandya returns to the squad. 

PAKISTAN WIN THE TOSS AND CHOOSE TO BOWL FIRST. Rohit Sharma can't help but snigger as his former coach Ravi Shastri blasts out his booming voice around the stadium through his microphone. 

Right then, it's 7pm and we will see Rohit Sharma and Babar Azam in the middle in a matter of seconds. 

There is of course one more player that India could play today and that is Deepak Hooda. He was being seen as a possible replacement for Virat Kohli, an incredible but equally credible option especially when Hooda scored that century against Ireland and memories of Kohli's T20 struggles were fresh. However, Kohli has looked quite good in the two innings that he played in this tournament and so if Hooda is played, it won't be as a top order batter by any stretch of imagination. 

It was during the last Asia Cup that Hardik Pandya's career was derailed by a back injury and Shastri who was head coach at the time, says that there was pin-drop silence in the dressing room at the time the all-rounder was stretchered off. “I walked over to the medical room and saw that he was lying flat on his back. He was not able to move, he was only able to move his head from side to side,” Shastri said. An extraordinary comeback from an extraordinary player. 

Right then, 20 minutes to go, we know what the pitch is like. What we don't know of course, is what is going to happen with the two teams. The last time, it was fairly obvious which players will turn up for India and it was more so the case for Pakistan. This time, we are yet to know who replaces Jadeja for India and Dahani for Pakistan. 

There is grass, says Wasim Akram in his pitch report, albeit a bit drier than what we saw during Afghanistan's game against Sri Lanka. “There is a lot carry as well,” he says. Wasim also adds that it is no longer a case of “win the toss, win the match” which was how it went in the IPL and T20 World Cup in UAE last year, because there has been no dew in the games player here. But still, he would say that the team that wins the toss will want to bowl first. 

For those watching on their television set, which is basically almost every single soul in urban and semi-urban India, it must have been a pleasent surprise to see Ravi Shastri start off the broadcast and then of course a brief reunion of the Shaz and Waz duo when he had that conversation with Wasim Akram in the beginning,