Asia Cup 2022: Top 10 funny memes after Hong Kong captain chooses to field first against Team India
After a win against Pakistan in their opening encounter on Sunday, Team India face Hong Kong in the Group A match of the Asia Cup 2022 on Wednesday (August 31) in Dubai. Rohit Sharma’s side registered a win during their previous meeting in the 2018 Asia Cup.
Hong Kong captain Nizakat Khan won the toss and chose to bowl first, much to the delight of many Indian fans.
Rishabh Pant replaced Hardik Pandya in Team India's playing XI for this game. The star all-rounder was rested to manage his workload, given that the Men in Blue play back-to-back games in the next few months ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup. The rest of the side remained unchanged as team management continued to stick with the three-pacer strategy.
Here are the playing XIs:
India XI: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Dinesh Karthik, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh
Hong Kong XI: Nizakat Khan (c), Yasim Murtaza, Babar Hayat, Kinchit Shah, Aizaz Khan, Scott McKechnie (wk), Zeeshan Ali, Haroon Arshad, Ehsan Khan, Ayush Shukla, Mohammad Ghazanfar
Fans observed the developments during the toss and took to social media platforms to express their views through intriguing memes. Most were glad that the Hong Kong captain opted to field as it would give Indian batters much-needed game time in the middle ahead of crucial contests.
Here is a collection of the best memes after the toss:
Hong Kong win the toss and opt to bowl.
Rohit Sharma :
#AsiaCup2022 #INDvsHKG https://t.co/HIhbZuYm1h
#RishabhPant is back 🥳
#INDvHKG https://t.co/UvZ7RJEErc
KL Rahul is manifesting some big runs tonight , of course ! 🤣
#indiavshongkong #AsiaCupT20 #AsiaCup2022 #KLRahul https://t.co/rxtU5fz1N3
#IndvsHkg #IndiaVsHongKong #TeamIndia https://t.co/n2Fr2AcLSs
India lost the toss and will bat first..
#indiavshongkong https://t.co/HRqEHDtp3w
"We just want to play good and hard cricket"- Team India captain Rohit Sharma ahead of Hong Kong clash
Speaking after losing the toss, Team India skipper Rohit Sharma opened up that they also wanted to chase but were willing to take up the challenge and try to post a good total in the game.
He emphasized the need to keep the intensity high at all times in international cricket, irrespective of opponents. Rohit stated:
"We were going to bowl first as well. Looks like a good pitch from what we played in the last game. Looks quite even so we have to bat well and put up a good score. (Different planning against Hong Kong?) Not really to be honest. We just want to play good and hard cricket."
He continued:
"We need to do our basics right which is what got us a victory against Pakistan. We bowled well in the good areas and batted reasonably well. One change - we've rested Hardik considering how important he is to us and have got Rishabh Pant in place of him."
At the time of writing, the Men in Blue were at 28/0 after three overs in the first innings with KL Rahul and Rohit in the middle.