Watch: An emotional Rohit Sharma at the national anthem as he leads India out for the first time
In his eighth T20 World Cup and first as captain, Rohit Sharma was seen very emotional as he completed the national anthem in front of a packed MCG crowd for the IND vs PAK fixture at the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2022. In the opening game for both teams at the T20 World Cup, India won the toss and opted to bowl first.
India named Mohammed Shami in their starting XI, who had joined the squad as a replacement to the injured Jasprit Bumrah, and plays his first game since last year's T20 World Cup. Shami had got three wickets in the only over he bowled in India's first warm-up game against Australia in Brisbane earlier this week, helping the side to a narrow six-run win. The other notable pick was off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, with Yuzvendra Chahal, India's joint-highest wicket-taker in the format being overlooked.
WATCH ROHIT SHARMA EMOTIONAL AT THE IND VS PAK T20 WORLD CUP 2022 TOSS
"Preparations have been good. We played a couple of practice games in Brisbane," Rohit said at the toss. "Time to come out and enjoy ourselves now. We were expecting nothing less than this, hopefully we'll entertain them (the crowd)."
"We'll try to post around 160-170," said Pakistan skipper Babar Azam. "We have prepared well, and we are ready for this big game. We had a T20 series back home (against England), we played a tri-series in New Zealand, so we are prepared."
Pakistan were dented early in their innings, with Babar being trapped leg-before for a golden duck by Arshdeep Singh.
Playing XIs
India: Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh
Pakistan: Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Shan Masood, Haider Ali, Mohammad Nawaz, Shadab Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Asif Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah