After a nail-biting win against arch-rivals Pakistan, India will take on Hong Kong in the fourth match of the ongoing Asia Cup 2022.
The acid test was passed against the Men in Green and now it would be fair to say that India has to complete the formalities to make their way into the Super four.
India was dominant with the ball as Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Hardik Pandya were right on the money. All the 10 Pakistan wickets were picked by the Indian seamers as the pitch had a tinge of green grass and had extra bounce for the pacers.
Kumar scalped four wickets while Pandya returned with three wickets to put India in a commanding position. However, Indian batting wasn’t that convincing as they were given a taste of their own medicine by the talented Pakistan pace battery.
Hardik Pandya (33) and Ravindra Jadeja (35) were able to add the finishing touches after Virat Kohli (35) had played a decent knock. Ergo, India will want to come up with a complete batting performance.
Hong Kong, on the other hand, had won all of their three matches in the qualifiers to make their way into the tournament. There is no doubt that they will need to play out of their skin to challenge the potent Indian team.
Match Prediction: India will begin the contest as red-hot favorites against Hong Kong.
Squads of both teams:
India: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan.
Standby: Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Deepak Chahar.
Hong Kong: Nizakat Khan (c), Kinchit Shah, Zeeshan Ali, Haroon Arshad, Babar Hayat, Aftab Hussain, Ateeq Iqbal, Aizaz Khan, Ehsan Khan, Scott McKechnie (wk), Ghazanfar Mohammad, Yasim Murtaza, Dhananjay Rao, Wajid Shah, Ayush Shukla, Ahan Trivedi, Mohammad Waheed.