And this remains the case in the women’s cricket event too, as the Harmanpreet Kaur side, which recently won the gold medal after beating Sri Lanka, has not met the Women in Green at the Asiad. India and Pakistan will be meeting each other in the Asian Games for the first time, and the clash will be for the biggest prize as the two men’s teams battle it out for the gold medal on Saturday at the Karogi Sports Park in Nisshin. Defending champions India are into only their second Asian Games in the cricket event and have not met their arch-rivals Pakistan in the five games they have played since the Hangzhou 2023 Games.
Nawaz hit the winning four in the 12th over to win the game. Pakistan Squad: Sahibzada Farhan(c), Maaz Sadaqat, Usman Khan(w), Saim Ayub, Hasan Nawaz, Abdul Samad, Arafat Minhas, Ahmed Daniyal, Mohammad Wasim Jr, Abrar Ahmed, Sufyan Moqim, Saad Masood, Ali Raza, Akif Javed, Haider Ali India Squad: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson(w), Shreyas Iyer(c), Ishan Kishan, Axar Patel, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Yash Thakur, Vipraj Nigam The rivalry takes centre stage for the biggest prize now as India look to defend their gold medal from the 2023 edition with a full-strength Indian team on the Japanese shores. India made light work of a second-string Sri Lankan side on a challenging surface as they registered a stellar 124-run win with Ishan Kishan and bowlers leading the way. On the other hand, Pakistan chased a decent 112 against Bangladesh in the semifinal in a six-wicket win with nine balls to spare in a curtailed game. Kishan scored a marvellous 80 from 46 balls with five sixes and four fours, while teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi also gave a strong start of 38 from 21 balls as India made an over-par 169/7. Pakistan were 76/4 and then got the over that they needed when Abdul Samad and Hasan Nawaz took 23 overs from Mustafizur Rahman’s 10th over, with Samad hitting 22 of them. The Men in Green then needed 13 runs from 18 balls, and they had done the hard work.
