Former Indian opening batter Wasim Jaffer took a dig on Shoiab Akhtar ahead of the high-octane India-Pakistan 2023 World Cup clash. With Shoaib Akhtar posting a photo of himself from a historic Test match against India and wishing for Pakistan to win, Jaffer questioned the Rawalpindi Express of using a picture from red-ball cricket ahead of ODIs.
The picture posted by Akhtar dates back to the Chennai Test between India and Pakistan in 1999 when the right-arm speedster castled Tendulkar for a duck and believes a similar thing could happen in Ahmedabad on Saturday. However, Jaffer took a jibe at the retired paceman for posting a photo of Test cricket ahead of what is a one-day fixture.
India and Pakistan to play in front of a packed crowd on Saturday:
A crowd of over 1,30,000 is expected for the blockbuster clash on Saturday, including some esteemed celebrities like Anushka Sharma, Amitabh Bachchan, and Rajnikanth. A pre-match show will also take place as singers like Sukhwinder Singh, Shankar Mahadevan, and Arijit Singh will perform on the stage.
It's worth noting that Pakistan haven't beaten the neighbours or arch-rivals India in a 50-over World Cup match, dating back to 1992. While India will start as firm favourites mainly due to the home advantage, it would be naive to take Pakistan lightly, given their gun bowling attack. Babar Azam's men are also coming off a confident-boosting victory over Sri Lanka as they registered the highest run-chase in a World Cup match, gunning down 345.
Hence, it will be interesting to see how they respond to the conditions.
