Pakistan opt to bowl against India in must-win U19 World Cup clash

Pakistan have won the toss and elected to bowl first in a must-win clash against arch-rivals India in the ICC Men’s U19 World Cup on Sunday.

Ahead of Sunday’s encounter, Pakistan trained at the Queens Sports Club on Saturday where the players, besides taking part in fielding drills, also had net sessions under the supervision of the coaching staff led by head coach Shahid Anwar.

Sameer Minhas said: “We played a scenario-based match yesterday on a challenging surface, which helped us understand how to survive, score runs and bowl in difficult situations.

Historically, the two arch-rivals have faced each other 29 times, with the Men in Blue dominating with 16 wins, followed by the Green Shirts with 12 victories, while one match ended with no result.

Playing XIs:

Pakistan: Hamza Zahoor (wk), Sameer Minhas, Usman Khan, Ahmed Hussain, Farhan Yousaf (c), Huzaifa Ahsan, Ali Hassan Baloch, Abdul Subhan, Momin Qamar, Mohammad Sayyam and Ali Raza.

India: Aaron George, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ayush Mhatre (c), Vihaan Malhotra, Abhigyan Kundu (wk), Vedant Trivedi, RS Ambrish, Kanishk Chouhan, Khilan Patel, Henil Patel, Deepesh Devendran.