Five exciting match-ups to watch out for in latest India-Pakistan showdown

India and Pakistan are meeting in a T20 International after more than 15 months and a lot has changed in the interim.

India under Suryakumar Yadav has become a crack unit having won 85 % of its matches since the retirement of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli from the shortest format.

Pakistan on the other hand have also shown a bit of aggressive streak post T20 World Cup in the USA where the team even lost to the host nation. Babar Azam and Muhammad Rizwan are no longer part of this set-up and the new look team under Salman Ali Agha isn’t doing too badly either.

With few hours to go for the marquee clash here, the PTI looks at what could be the most interesting match-ups in the contest.

1. Shubman Gill vs Shaheen Shah Afridi:

This is the first time that Indian vice-captain and Pakistan’s pace spearhead will be squaring off in a T20 International. Shaheen has been part of three games against India (all in T20 WCs) and incidentally Gill wasn’t a part of these games.

This will be a battle of equals. Shaheen is a nightmare when his nip-backer lands on perfect length early on with no visible footwork from a right-hand batter. Gill would certainly be wary of that.

But if one looks at Gill’s record against left-arm seamers across 15 T20Is in which he faced them, it is not bad either. He has faced 92 deliveries in all and scored 157 runs in them at a strike-rate of over 170. He hit eight sixes and 20 boundaries and has been dismissed by them only twice. But against Shaheen, it will be a different battle.

2. Jasprit Bumrah vs Saim Ayub:

Saim Ayub is rated very highly in Pakistan cricket for his unconventional and fearless stroke-play, which includes a ‘No Look Six’. It is a stroke where he plays the pick-up pull behind square without looking at the delivery while executing the shot.

He has played that stroke too many times in the PSL with some degree of success but against world’s best fast bowler across formats, it will be interesting to see what kind of reaction time Saim has when it swings or moves off the surface at 140 plus clicks.

3. Kuldeep Yadav vs Fakhar Zaman:

The craftiest bowler in the Indian T20 set-up against the mercurial Pakistani southpaw — this will be watched with most interest. How Fakhar negotiates Kuldeep’s googlies, the one that comes into a left-hander will also indicate how Pakistan are going to bat as a team.

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F akhar’s T20 stats (domestic plus Internationals) indicate that he doesn’t often play that genre of bowlers. In his 254 batting innings across 301 T20 games, Fakhar has faced only 15 deliveries from left-arm wrist spinners and managed 21 runs getting dismissed once.

4. Abhishek Sharma vs Abrar Ahmed:

The toast of India’s T20 team, the southpaw from Amritsar is one of the cleanest hitters in the game and his record against right-arm wrist spinners (leg-spinner) can scare the daylights out of opposition captains.

In fact across all T20s (domestic and international) in past two years, he has faced 51 deliveries from right-arm leggies and scored 151 runs runs at a strike-rate of nearly 300. Hence, Abrar Ahmed will have to be used judiciously if Abhishek sticks around beyond Powerplay.

5. Hasan Nawaz vs Varun Chakravarthy:

Pakistan T20 team’s latest pin-up boy has a healthy strike-rate of 161 plus across T20s but he hasn’t exactly done well against wrist spinners — whether right arm or left-arm in hi short career.

In the recently concluded tri-nation at Sharjah, which was a slightly more difficult track to bat on against slow bowlers, Hasan perished trying to go on offensive against Rashid Khan in one game and Noor Ahmed in another.

In one game was holed out trying to fetch a delivery off Rashid from outside the off-stump and against Noor, tried a paddle sweep to one pitched outside leg-stump.

He isn’t good at reading from the hand and Varun Chakravarthy could prove to be a handful with his over-spin on deliveries which dip late and bounce more.