Rohit would ‘love’ to play Test series against Pakistan in neutral venue
Bilateral cricket between India and Pakistan has been put on hold since Misbah-ul-Haq’s team last toured India to play a three-match ODI series way back in 2012-13.
India have won the toss and skipper Rohit Sharma have elected to bat first against the Netherlands at Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).
Both teams will play their second group match from pool B, super 12 matches of the ongoing T20 world cup.
India is going with the same squad combination which played against arch-rival Pakistan at MCG on 23 October.
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In that thrilling match Rohit and company managed to beat Pakistan thanks to Virat Kohli’s finest innings of 82 runs.
On the other side the Dutch captain Scott Edwards is also going with the same squad, but in the previous match against Bangladesh in Hobart, the European side faced 9 runs defeat in a nail biting encounter.
It’s the first instance when both India and the Netherlands will lock horns in T20 format.
“Morale is really high (after the four-wicket win over Pakistan). Winning a game like that takes your confidence to the next level but at the same time we understand we need to stay calm, just the first game of the tournament and plenty of things to happen,” said India skipper Rohit Sharma.
“We have to calm ourselves and look forward to this game. We want to keep improving no matter what the results are, it always keeps you in good stead when you are thinking like that,” Sharma added.
The Netherlands captain Scott Edward’s said he’s happy to bowl first though he would have wanted to bat first too. “Our bowlers have been sensational all tournament, hopefully, we can continue that and our batters can come out and perform today. Batting is the obvious one (to improve), just need to get some scores together.”
Playing XIs:
India: Rohit Sharma (captain), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami and Arshdeep Singh
Netherlands: Vikramjit Singh, Max O’Dowd, Bas de Leede, Colin Ackermann, Tom Cooper, Scott Edwards (captain & wk), Tim Pringle, Logan van Beek, Shariz Ahmed, Fred Klaassen and Paul van Meekeren
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