Online Desk: India captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bat in their highly-anticipated Asia Cup group stage clash against arch-rivals Pakistan in Pallekele today.  Rain has been playing hide-and-seek in Pallekele today, and could once again intervene during the game.

Despite the overcast conditions, both the captains said they would bat first. “There is a bit of weather around but we cannot think about it too much,” Rohit said at the toss. “Embrace the challenge, embrace the situation. We had a six-day camp in Bangalore where we worked on our skills.”

India brought in two changes from their last series in West Indies. Shreyas Iyer and Jasprit Bumrah make a return to the side. “Since the last ODI series we played in the West Indies, we have got a few additions: Shreyas and Bumrah are back. Shardul [Thakur] is there. Hardik [Pandya], of course. And Shardul is there. And two spinners in Kuldeep [Yadav] and [Ravindra] Jadeja.”

Meanwhile, Pakistan fielded an unchanged eleven from the one that won against Nepal. India will begin their Asia Cup campaign with this game while Pakistan already got off to a tremendous start by thrashing tournament debutants Nepal by 238 runs in their first game.

Playing XIs:

India:  Rohit Sharma (capt), Shubman Gill, Ishan Kishan (wk), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah

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