Asia Cup 2022: [Watch] Aggressive Rohit Sharma smashes bowlers around during nets session ahead of India-Pakistan encounter

​

Indian captain Rohit Sharma was seen sweating it out in an open nets session in Dubai ahead of his side's Asia Cup 2022 opener against Pakistan on August 28.

The 35-year-old was seen taking on spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin as he smashed some huge hits towards long on. Sharma looked in sensational touch against the two spinners. One of his best shots saw him step out to Ashwin and loft the ball beautifully over the off-spinner's head with a straight bat.

His weakness against leg spin and left-arm pacers is well documented. Sharma was seen working on timing the ball well against tweaker Yuzvendra Chahal and emerging left-arm speedster Arshdeep Singh.

Here's a video of the same:

​

Johns.

@CricCrazyJ0hns

Captain Rohit sharma hitting the bowlers in nets.

1307

142

Captain Rohit sharma hitting the bowlers in nets. https://t.co/D5Kaou4Z17

---

Shaheen Afridi's absence may give Team India an advantage

Pakistan will be confident of a face-off against India due to their comprehensive 10-wicket win over their arch-rivals in the T20 World Cup last year. However, their main weapon Shaheen Afridi will not be a part of the Asia Cup as he failed to recover in time from a knee injury.

India are likely to deploy the same top three they used at the 2021 T20 World Cup in KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. The absence of a quality left-arm pacer like Afridi could prove to be a huge advantage for the three star batters. Afridi notably dismissed all three batters in their last clash.

​

Team Shaheen Afridi

@TeamShaheenShah

Get well soon my champ !!

#ShaheenAfridi we gonna miss you in Asia Cup 2022.

10

1

Get well soon my champ !! 🙏

#ShaheenAfridi we gonna miss you in Asia Cup 2022. https://t.co/kM0QX5z8sc

​

Pakistan do have other decent pace options like Naseem Shah and Muhammad Hasnain at their disposal. But whether they will be accurate enough to stem the run flow and pick up early wickets in the powerplay remains to be seen.

Overall, it promises to be a cracking encounter and a fitting dress rehearsal for the arch-rivals' T20 World Cup bout set to take place later this year.

India's Squad for Asia Cup 2022: Rohit Sharma (C), KL Rahul (VC), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (WK), Dinesh Karthik (WK), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan.

Reserves: Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar, and Axar Patel.

​