India captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and has elected to bowl first against Pakistan in match 12 of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. India made one change with fit-again Shubman Gill replacing Ishan Kishan. Pakistan, who are playing their first-ever match at the venue, are unchanged. This is the eight meeting between the two Asian arch-rivals in the ODI Cricket World Cup. India enjoy a 7-0 lead in the head-to-head records. (Live Scorecard | Preview | Live Blog | Full Coverage)
Speaking at the toss, Rohit Sharma said, "We will bowl first, cannot get bigger than this, fantastic atmosphere. Sure lot of us are going to experience something really extraordinary. It's a good track, not going to change much, dew could be a big factor and keeping that in mind, we want to bowl first. We want to keep striving for the best, we want to come out there and give our best in every game. Keeping the atmosphere in the team relaxed is the most important thing in a tournament like this. Gill is back in place of Ishan, unfortunate for Ishan to miss out, feel for him, he stepped up when we needed him. Gill has been a special player for us over the past year or so, especially at this ground and we wanted him back."
Babar too said, if he would have won the toss, he would have bowled. He said, "We also wanted to bowl first. We have had good two wins, momentum and confidence is high. Jam-packed stadium, we will enjoy it. We want to be good in the field, we had a couple of good practice sessions. Same team for us."
India have made one change to the side, with Shubman Gill coming in for Ishan Kishan. Pakistan have retained the same playing XI.
Here are the playing XIs:
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj.
Pakistan (Playing XI): Abdullah Shafique, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf.
