Buoyant India get ready to steamroll minnows Hong Kong in their second and final group league game of the Asia Cup 2022 in Dubai on Wednesday (August 31).
The Group A match won't be more than a glorified net session for Rohit Sharma's men against a team, mostly comprising Pakistani and Indian expats, who otherwise are not good enough to play first-class cricket in either of the two nations.
After a hard-earned victory over Pakistan in a last-over thriller, scripted by Hardik Pandya, the focus against Hong Kong will be on batters and their adequate game time.
KL Rahul, whose first T20I in 2022 was against Pakistan the other night, would want to come out all guns blazing and may take this opportunity to try an alternate batting approach at the onset, compared to what has been his style at the IPL.
In T20Is, teams are going for impact performance and often a 20 ball 45 is of greater value than a 90 not out of 65 balls.
Quality of an innings and its significance in the larger context of the game is more important at this stage as India get ready for the T2O World Cup to be hosted by Australia from October 16 to November 13.
Obviously, the quality of Hong Kong bowling, to put it politely, won't match up to Pakistan, but there is always a fear as one doesn't exactly know what to expect from an unknown entity.
Hence, it is important that Rahul uses this opportunity to the fullest to gain his confidence before the start of the Super Fours and business end of the tournament.
Skipper Rohit has made it clear that experimentation will continue and hence one shouldn't be surprised if there is another batting order that could be tried out on Wednesday.
India: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan
Hong Kong: Nizakat Khan (c), Kinchit Shah, Aftab Hussain, Aizaz Khan, Ateeq Iqbal, Babar Hayat, Dhananjay Rao, Ehsan Khan, Haroon Arshad, Scott McKechnie, Ghazanfar Mohammad, Mohammad Waheed, Ayush Shukla, Ahan Trivedi, Wajid Shah, Yasim Murtaza, Zeeshan Ali
When: August 28 (Sunday)
Where to Watch: Star Sports 1, Star Sports 1 HD, Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports 1 HD Hindi, Star Sports 1 Tamil, Star Sports 1 Telugu, Star Sports 1 Kannada
Live Streaming: Hotstar
Timing: 07:30 pm IST onwards
