Pakistan’s head coach Mike Hesson stated that India are the benchmark but the Men in Green can put Shreyas Iyer’s team under pressure. India is currently the number one team in the T20I rankings but recently had a scare against Japan in the historic one-off T20I.

India suffered six losses on the UK tour but bounced back strongly against Zimbabwe and Afghanistan in the subsequent T20I series. 

India has dominated Pakistan at major tournaments and the two Asian teams can face each other at the Asian Games.

India have won the last six T20Is against Pakistan and they would look to continue their domination against the arch-rivals.

“India are the benchmark in terms of white-ball cricket at the moment and our challenge is to catch up to that,” Hesson said on the sidelines of Pakistan’s pre-departure camp in Karachi.

“We are preparing as best as we can and if we get an opportunity to play [India], we will certainly put them under pressure as we were able to do in the final of the Asia Cup. There is a lot of cricket to be played between now and before being able to play the final for both sides, so we are not getting too far ahead of ourselves,” he added.

The former RCB head coach admitted Pakistan are struggling in the Test format after they suffered a 0-3 series loss against England.

“The Test team is struggling and we are all well aware of it. But the win percentage of the T20I team in the last 15 months has been third or the fourth best. We have lost to India on multiple occasions and that is the benchmark of all the Pakistani teams, we understand that. But to suggest that the T20 side is at a low [is not correct],” Hesson said.

Pakistan will play their quarterfinal at the Asian Games on Monday, but their opponent is yet to be decided.