Former Pakistan opener Salman Butt feels that Pakistan will have an edge over the arch-rivals India in the Asia Cup 2023 starting on August 30 in Multan. India will take on Pakistan on September 2 at Kandy. The Men in Green has a formidable unit to do well in Sub-continental conditions after becoming the NO.1 ODI team in the World.
India and Pakistan will walk in one of the favourites to win the continental event. Babar Azam-led side has been performing consistently well in International Cricket over the last few years. The Men in Green produced a scintillating performance to claim the series 3-0 against Afghanistan on Saturday.
Speaking on his YouTube Channel, Salman Butt feels that the fitness of India’s fast bowling unit is a cause for concern for the Indian team management and said that India has got a lot of youngsters in the team apart from the experienced Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and reckons that the team will demand a lot from India’s stalwarts to win the game against Pakistan.
“If we look at India’s fast bowling, fitness is a concern. Players have been unfit for a long time, we don’t know if they are fragile, or will they go full throttle. Apart from Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, they have youngsters, who have played plenty of cricket but they don’t have that much of experience.
“India have won matches only when Rohit Sharma has played well or Virat Kohli has done something spectacular. When the onus is on others they have mostly struggled,” Salman Butt said.
The form of the experienced Indian players Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli will be crucial for the team’s success in the upcoming Asia Cup 2023, as they have better experience of playing in the Sri Lanka conditions and the Men in Blue has done exceedingly well for the team, when India’s top order perform well in Asia Cup 2023.
They Have Not Helped India Win Matches Against Pakistan Or In Their Own – Salman Butt
Salman Butt said that Pakistan has more experienced players in their playing 11 than the Indian team, as Babar Azam-led side has a better group of players in the squad and asserted that the Rohit Sharma-led side has a less experienced core of players in the team and said that players will huge a expectations to play well in the India-Pakistan games.
“Pakistan have Babar, Rizwan, Fakhar, Shadab, Shaheen, Haris Rauf. And in my opinion, Pakistan has a much larger core group. India too has match-winners like Jadeja, Shami, Bumrah, Rohit Sharma, and Virat Kohli. But their batting is brittle, if Pakistan picks the two big wickets then the others will have a lot to prove. They have not helped India win matches against Pakistan or in their own.”
“There are plenty of expectations from India, hence the pressure is more. And since India has not played against Pakistan for a long time for whatever reasons, their players no matter how much IPL they’ve played, they don’t have the experience of playing in such a high-voltage clash. Chahe subah, dopahar, sham IPL khel le (no matter how much you play in the IPL) it does not bring the same pressure, which is during India-Pakistan series,” Salman Butt added.
The six-nation tournament being held in Pakistan and Sri Lanka is based on the hybrid concept, where both countries will co-host the event as four matches will be played in Pakistan, and the remaining nine matches will be played in Sri Lanka.