Asia Cup 2023: Pakistan elect to bat first against Nepal in opening match

Pakistan won the toss and decided to bat against Nepal in the first match of Asia Cup 2023 on Wednesday.

Asia Cup opener is taking place at Multan Cricket Stadium as Pakistan hosts the regional cricket event after 15 years.

Nepal, as a team, and Multan, as a venue, will make their debut in the Asia Cup. The two sides are playing their maiden match against each other at such a big level.

Meanwhile, Pakistan enter the Asia Cup on a high note as they stand on the top slot in the ICC rankings for ODI teams on Saturday after a 3-0 clean sweep over Afghanistan in Sri Lanka. This is the second time the Pakistan team topped the chart since April.

“We will bat first, the pitch looks very dry and shiny. No reason to name the XI earlier, we wanted to give confidence to our team. To be honest, being the top-ranked team brings a good kind of pressure, we’ll try to enjoy and do our best,” Pakistan captain Babar Azam said at the toss.

Lineups

Nepal: Kushal Bhurtel, Aasif Sheikh (wk), Rohit Paudel (c), Aarif Sheikh, Kushal Malla, Dipendra Singh Airee, Gulsan Jha, Sompal Kami, Karan KC, Sandeep Lamichhane, Lalit Rajbanshi

Pakistan: Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf