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Toss India chose to bat vs Pakistan
India have won the toss and opted to bat against Pakistan in the Asian Games men’s gold medal match in Nisshin on Saturday. This is the seventh meeting between the two teams in the final of a major tournament (five or more teams). So far, the record reads India 3, Pakistan 3.
India were unchanged from their semi-final win over Sri Lanka. They continued to pick all four of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan, with their allrounders giving them genuine batting depth all the way to No. 9. Given how much the conditions in Nisshin have favoured spin, Jasprit Bumrah was their only frontline fast bowler.
Pakistan went spin-heavy too. They made one change from their semi-final victory over Bangladesh, with the legspin-bowling allrounder Saad Masood coming in for his T20I debut as replacement for the seamer Mohammad Wasim Jr. This meant Ahmed Daniyal was their only genuine seam option.
The captains, Shreyas Iyer and Sahibzada Farhan, did not shake hands at the toss in keeping with the recent trend in matches pitting the two teams.
Earlier in the day, Sri Lanka rode on a stellar all-round performance from Tharindu Ratnayake to beat Bangladesh and take back the bronze medal.
India: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Shreyas Iyer (capt), Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah
Pakistan: Sahibzada Farhan (capt), Maaz Sadaqat, Usman Khan (wk), Saim Ayub, Hasan Nawaz, Abdul Samad, Arafat Minhas, Ahmed Daniyal, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Abrar Ahmed, Sufiyan Moqim
